I Linger For a Reason...

'This is the last time for this', said a girl in my Grade 6 Sunday School class yesterday, slowly running fingers over the back of the chairs around the table. (our summer kid's programs at church are run  a bit differently and in September she will be graduated from the grade 1-6 format) Her sentimentalism tugged at my heart as I replied, 'oh my dear, get used to saying that, because everything in life is but a little season..." This girl also used to be in my childcare so I have an extra-motherly place in my heart for her💖

Yesterday I sent the link below, from ten years ago

 to my daughters after someone happened across it,

reminding me of poems long forgotten....

Of Realizations and Routines

the thoughts still as relevant now as then, 

just with different 'pictures' attached

These two incidences are part of what inspired this poem

as well as tugging the tomato cages from peony-past bushes 

to take to the vegetable garden to try

to squeeze overgrown tomato plants into...

(sometimes trying to be thrifty/frugal has its challenges!!)

Some gardening-lingering...

some supper-lingering

some between-task lingering...

I linger where the vibrant vistas of first summer sweep

I loiter in the arbor draped with mauve wisteria plume...

(it was a delicious sunshine and thunderstorm day!!)

I linger for a reason, where the flower bower brims

Where the new day is breaking and where ebbing daylight dims

I linger in the laughter and the chatter of a child

Beneath the dappled rafter of leaf-song, wind-tossed and wild

I loiter in the arbor draped with mauve wisteria plume

And girded with the regal stance of hollyhocks in bloom

I linger where the vibrant vistas of first summer sweep

And at the cradle where the little baby lies asleep

I linger where raindrops tap-dance and where the thunder rolls

And laneway rivers eddy into divots, dips and holes

And where the colors of the world spin on a carousel

Of winter, spring, summer and fall in breath-stealing farewell  

I linger where the fledgling cheeps and spreads its wings to fly

And at the window framing scenes that roll beneath the sky

And in a doorway torn between looking back and ahead

Caught off guard by impressions of a life loosed from its thread

...in rooms where echoes waft where noise and messes used to be

where mother lost her patience with her precious company

after tripping over shoes left where she now lingers, oh

and traces fingers over places primed with letting go

I linger where the robin sings and where the finches flit

I linger in the garden for the dear, sheer joy of it

Where bare feet dash and flash through green pastures of innocence

Into the rude awakening of choice and recompense 

I linger, just to love the touch and feel of here and now

To sense the glove of Father's Time's hand brush across my brow

I linger for a reason that is ruthless in its art

Where 'everything a season' steals small pieces of my heart 

Janet Martin

I linger where raindrops tap-dance and where the thunder rolls

And laneway rivers eddy into divots, dips and holes...