Brigadoon

Today marks the last day of school for Ontario's elementary students, and suddenly I heard the drone of locusts in willow arches overhead where my long-ago summer-girl days disappeared... 

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How large the summer days of childhood sprawled

Beneath bare feet its carefree pathways fell

Toward the future where a daydream called

And lured us from the brook and daisy-dell

Into that yonder due of no return

Where days seem bent on departure too soon

And every now and then we pause to yearn

For childhood’s swiftly-severed Brigadoon

Where, long and lean dusk’s shadows of farewell

Climb to, then through the place where echoes swell

How small the leap from there to here to there

It is hard to prepare for the unknown

Pity the one who has no time to stare

But pants headlong toward a cold gravestone

Though the rebirth of ancient summer charms

Abides; A rose is still a rose, oh my,

And in time’s daily death twilight disarms

With gold and draws its gate across the sky

Familiar panoramas disappear

Into the Brigadoon of Yester-year

We stand upon the centerpiece of life

Tomorrow, yesterday, ah, what are they

But chimerical, historical strife

Time’s most valuable asset is Today

And it will never come to pass again

This spending place of moments tries our hearts

With pieces of a picture, pleasure, pain

Like summer’s day, drops petals then departs

While we master the art of living well

And return to the brook and daisy-dell

© Janet Martin