We are past July's half-way mark...doesn't that make your summer-heart lurch a little?!!
It’s summertime; 'neath lilt of vine we leap from day to day
Like steppingstones laid through a sparkling, swirling
waterway
And try to find in daily grind a little of the joy
We knew in days long left behind, of carefree girl and
boy
So we ease up the reins and chains that bind us to the plow
Say, whoa, Nellie, slow down Nellie, easy, easy now
For somehow time takes to full gallop over misty morn
Where wheat fields toss their glossy manes until their
flow is shorn
Where flowers hoist their choicest plume while we, with mouths
agape
Are overcome with worship where bud-miracles take shape
And we long for the longer days we knew when we were
young
For days that stretched into the blue through meadows heaven-hung
With nothing more to do than peer into each butter-cup
And tip the dew from chalices where midnight-fairies sup
And kick the dust into a storm of wanderlust at large
And climb like lusty sailors onto a green-garden barge
To sail beneath the willow-tree that sighed with sheer
content
Whilst shadowing the grassy sea with lacy filament
Where now the wings we spread are feathered with matters
of fact
So much to weigh us down if we have no plan of attack
To help us make the merry most of days, now half-the-length
(a faith-plan of attack offers a sure tower of strength)
And in the middle of the muddle we learn how to pause
How to find beauty in a world so full of glaring flaws
How to savour fond flavours, clover-petal’s sugar-tips
Re-tasting childhood’s summer in our hearts and on our
lips
And how to hold a moment like a fragile butterfly
Because we’ve learned how swift and suave summer can
flutter by
And so we stop to listen to the toll of flower-bells
And fold our weathered wings to listen to the soulful
knell
Of twilight tumbling through pink palisades propped on
the west
To gather up another summer day into Past’s nest
And tug at tender chords tied to the rhythm and the rhyme
Of ebb and flow and high and low of dear, old summer-time
© Janet Martin
