"Watermelon Lemonade and Iced Tea" by Bronwyn Wachter (Hancock County)

The air sits hot and heavy
sleepy and dreamlike as the early autumn night.
Scented by salt and the seafoam spray
on the rock that I found myself on.
Miles away,
far down the East Coast,
the crashing waves replaced with rain,
the spray, replaced by streetlight fog.
The silence of the sea and sky,
better than the voices of people.
Whose accents I don’t fully share,
experiences I don’t have,
like a city in winter,
or a summer up north,
months colored by the sight
of northern snow
and southern summers.
It was the extreme temperatures,
that people always 
could tell by.
The tolerance of 
both twenty below
and well over a hundred.
It’s like being an oddly flavored drink,
a blend of counteracting flavors,
sour and sweet at the same time.
Even so, I spend
the northern winters and the southern summers,
drinking watermelon lemonade and iced tea
under the same year round stars.

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Bronwyn Wachter is a freshman at John Bapst Memorial High School, and the author of “Watermelon Lemonade and Iced Tea”. They wrote it about spending half of their time in the South, and half up north. In their spare time, they enjoy astronomy, learning languages, archery, and rowing.