Summer in Slow Motion

 

Noon plays like a cello through arc of green leaf

Time drapes warm and mellow, a fellow reposed

We scrawl on its awning with eyes half-closed

Lying unhurried beneath summer’s sheaf

 Loose-strife meanders through meadows sunlit

Laughing like stragglers with nowhere to be

We search the sky for its line on the sea

Willing the hours to stumble a bit

Down by the river where once we were young

And days were forever with nary a care

We pause, reaching to recapture its air

But moments melt like snow-drops on our tongue

Green is a girl, glad and daring to dream

Maiden of music and arms flung full-wide

Bronze is the mother that walks by her side

Hearing the echo of footfalls, it seems

That bend in the lane begs our feet to go free

We are not chained like convicts to life’s toil

Surely the pulse of youth throbs in earth’s soil

Summer spills petals like silk saffron tea

© Janet Martin