Sing a Song of Almost Heaven

Did the first week of July leave you breathless too?

with an earth-warped sense of Almost Heaven?

Sing a song of bare foot princess

Loveliness of little girls...

Sing a song of sapphire rafter

Vaulted above saffron field

Sing a song of salad gladness

Sing a song of Almost Heaven

Heady scent of fresh mown hay

Landscape-sills lavishly laden

With summer’s floral buffet...

Sing a song of Almost Heaven

Heady scent of fresh mown hay

Landscape-sills lavishly laden

With summer’s floral buffet

Sing a song of sun-kissed hours

Cabbage amethyst and jade

Chubby child’s fist, full of flowers

Ice cube-crackling lemonade

Sing a song of bare foot princess

Loveliness of little girls

Pretty polka-dotted dresses

Tiara of tousled curls

Sing a song of sapphire rafter

Vaulted above saffron sweep

Lilting with hope’s hearty laughter

Of a soon-harvest to reap

Sing a song of pure devotion

Where the fruit of sweat and toil

Swells and billows like an ocean

Green and gold with mercy’s spoil

Wild bloom opulence fills ditches

Chamomile and chicory

Trefoil tapestry bewitches

Loosestrife pens pink poetry

Sing a song of School is Over

Garden-haven happiness

Honeybees imbibed with clover-

Nectar’s innocent excess

Sing a song of lily-lanterns

Candelabras, petal-plush

Daddies, laddies and blue herons

Fishing silver shallows, hush

While summer starts to unravel

Sing of hammock hideaways

Book vacations that don't travel

Holiday traffic highways

Sing a song of salad gladness

Bowls brimming with beans and peas

Hearts hurting with happy-sadness

Tuned to fleeting symphonies

Slow the music, pause primed pages

Tame the tempo of tick-tock

Let the ebb and flow of ages

Dare the dogma of the clock

Let love’s warm waves lap ‘round small talk

Feel the font of memories

Heatwave-rippled street and sidewalk

Honey-suckle tickled breeze

Sing a song of moments flitting

Like a finch or butterfly

Sing a song of front porch sitting

Sing a song of sweet July

© Janet Martin

While summer starts to unravel

Sing of hammock hideaways...

Today's poem was

Inspired in part by this gem of a July poem...

July

by Sir Charles George Douglas Roberts

I am for the open meadows,

Open meadows full of sun,

Where the hot bee hugs the clover,

The hot breezes drop and run.

I am for the uncut hayfields

Open to the cloudless blue,—

For the wide unshadowed acres

Where the summer's pomps renew;

Where the grass-tops gather purple,

Where the oxeye daisies thrive,

And the mendicants of summer

Laugh to feel themselves alive;

Where the hot scent steams and quivers,

Where the hot saps thrill and stir,

Where in leaf-cells' green pavilions

Quaint artificers confer;

Where the bobolinks are merry,

Where the beetles bask and gleam,

Where above the powdered blossoms

Powdered moth-wings poise and dream;

Where the bead-eyed mice adventure

In the grass-roots green and dun.

Life is good and love is eager

In the playground of the sun!