Summer Sonnet

Why do you haste with step so lithe and fleet?

Who must you visit and why do you rush?

The essence of your lilt is bittersweet

For as you spill in coral, floral blush

Where golden rod and milkweed plume compete

We feel you slipping through the underbrush

And while our arms are laden with your mirth

Or else while we run fingers fondly where

Soft spring had stirred the atrium of earth

We sense a winnowing upon the air

Within the sweep of harvest-heavy girth

Within the answer to a farmer’s prayer

And as we linger in your citadel

You softly draw us nearer to farewell

Place your distraction kindly at my door

For I am eager to be entertained

With sunny days or raindrops as they pour

From lintels high above, free, unrestrained

Yet, even then I cannot quite ignore

The imminence of something yet contained

Within the hours as they gently reach

To fill our baskets with glad garden-grace

Or in the waves that roll across the beach

Or in the canopy of walnut-lace

I taste it in the sweet smile of a peach

And I have lived enough to keenly feel

Your precious moments dripping from Time’s reel

The splendor of your tender eventide

Cannot persuade me to mourn or to dance

I am enamored but you do not hide

Time’s truth within your rose-petal romance

How swift it seems the night and day divide

Your portion; the vine covers the fence

And Queen Ann’s lace gilds every meadow-lane

I am not sad and yet my gladness aches

For in the rippling grass and golden grain

The Hand that gives is the same Hand that takes

And I can never perfectly explain

The beauty of this pain that gently breaks

Surging within, in humble, soulful praise

For the sweet rendering of summer days

© Janet Martin