Summer Reflections

....

The Presence of a Slight Weight

His landing so soft as if floating like
a snowflake on a still winter night
soundlessly settling in the white moonlight
only those sleeping aware of its presence

In that between state separating
sleep from wake he came while
dappled sun threw leafy shadows
over the room and the patchwork
quilt upon which I lie

The presence of a slight weight was
all that announced his arrival
his footfalls silent as cottonwood
seeds tossing in the June wind

A glance at my face with green-gray eyes
a touch on my skin with the softest of paw
as if to say “Oh, you are here too,
I guess that can be allowed”

....

Goodbye Before Hello

Approaching the door
with apprehension
a little uncertain
of place or person

A moment of failed recognition
understandable you see
as time had passed
events had intervened
but still unforgivable

I had been looking past this hello
to a distant goodbye
Unable to enter the moment
for fear of the future
Saying goodbye before saying hello

Entry Into Summer*

Days so long night seems forgotten
an afterthought like last winters chill
or the time the moon shown twice
and the blue light danced in the clearing

Day of long light when the sun stands still
and our hearts fill with promises enough
to carry us from beginning to end under
the deep green of full leafed trees

Lying on my back the billowing
clouds sail by in a proud blue sky
Their ragged edges bright against
sunlight and centers moist-gray
with an early thought of rain
They travel from days now
gone to imaginations fantasies
as I enter into summer

Floating now, wave tossed by ocean serf
rising and falling and rolling as horizons
briefly seen disappear in a splash
and ancient forces cast their net
catching me up in memories

Summer is the green and yellow and
brown and lines and patterns of
an artist’s painting where lives are
lived together in field and town and
the abundance of this season joins
the abundance of our season in the
amber waves of a summer solstice

When the summer birds
take their flight
goes the summer with them
Till then let us live this time to the full
in all the hours of the long day

*Inspired by the painting “Summer Solstice” by Steve Childs