A tranquil blue breathed above as mama’s finest table cloth, cosseting a lemonade sun, a lemonade sun with a fizz of early rays. Cars in calmest pulse flowed the blacktop, colours a-shine, radios singing proud. Streetlamps took their turn to rest, to dream as opening eyes smiled in the dayshine. And so, amid floral aromas, amid a coffee imbued breeze, the birds trilled their bonny ballads. The time to rise, to measure our day in soulful steps, dancing to the beat of our own drum, had come. Adventure was a-foot and all could sense it.

September 19, 2025.

 

Spring crossed the rubicon and so summer became. Profligate was she with nature’s most vivid inks, a master in the art of the synergistic pastiche. And so, within the largesse of gentle heat, within the tempered erratic days of rain, she became the very effigy of the licentious view. For what is aromatic poetry without a liberty or two? What is such visual splendour if bees should be marshalled and butterflies drilled? No! No! That won’t do! For summer is a freeform dance, an annual boogaloo!     

May 15, 2025.

 

We bathed in the summer wind, feeling it eddy-hug all that we are. Our bare arms were its pianos as it played keys in soft cascades. Of wintry wind, it bore no resemblance. Of ice, it carried none. Instead, with fragrant notes that swirled, with the patience of aeons and love’s everlasting hope, it serenaded to the angel within.     

May 27, 2025.

 

Summer is a song, a most hearty serenade. Its music is written in blossom quavers, in busy honey bees. Then, for joy, of blessings-sake, comes the sweet carol of the birds. How I love them, this winged choir, chirping their dreams to listening ears: be they yours, be they mine, be they rabbit, mouse or shrew. And, should a light rain per-chance come by with its hither and thither watering, all the better, all the greener, all the gayer still! When August yawns into September, and September bows to Autumn-tide, these memories I’ll treasure as God’s own poetry.

May 2, 2025.

 

Summer sent her kissing wind to coast the blacktop streets. She sent pulsing volleys of meadow fragranced air. She sent it infused with homeopathic birdsong, a sweet sound that dared linger long after the song was done. This I heard with my heart, I felt in my soul, and it radiated within until a lyric began to grow. I hummed. I danced a step or two. My lament had blown clean away as loose confetti and a new story was inking itself in. Perhaps it was an ordinary breeze, with neither magic nor music, yet it was the start of everything; it was day one.

April 30, 2025.

 

That summer began with the warmth of a deep-emotion smile, yet became an oppression that raged into an inferno, chaotic and wild. Always it stays, the memory of flames, the scorching scars... yet what was once charred and blistered has been soothed by seasonal rains and nature has rebounded. It's not that one forgets, but that life has a way of finding a pathway to healing, to a new way to thrive.    

June 3, 2023.

 

A newly radiant sun steps forth from the spring time, wrapping us in her warm and brilliant rays.

September 7, 2020.

 

The echoes of our summer days remain as flowers immune to winter chills.     

May 6, 2020.

 

Come see me in the summer time, when the leaves are dark green and full, opened toward the sunlight and breathing in the hot aromatic air.

April 10, 2020.

 

In the summertime I could close my eyes and feel that the meadow and floral blooms were as much within me as they were around me, supporting my body upon the warm earth.

April 4, 2020.

 

Between the paving stones comes blooms so bold and tall, giving of their aroma to the summer-infused breeze. For these seeds of humble size and hue are the ninjas of the botanical world, born to shout loud of their graffiti-petaled beauty.

September 18, 2019.

 

That hot sidewalk has me dancing along a little faster, but since my destination is assured that's all good. The sun is brilliant in the cornflower-blue sky, as if one perfect petal was stretched so wide around all the world. As I go I'm dreaming up new graffiti, new vibrant mosaics to bring this neighbourhood to a higher rhythm, an exuberance we were born for. That's summer. That's the time when music, art and dance flow into one another as inseparable as any true friends should be.  

September 3, 2019.

 

In the late summer wind are the red flags of the poppy petals, a living masterpiece of nature. Though they grow unnoticed by so many, they are more to my eye than a monet or any artwork that brings their likeness in beautiful strokes of softest bristles.

August 6, 2019.

 

Anya is watching the trees, how they sway in a warming breeze. It is that time when summer begins to blossom into something the body feels as much as the brain, when the emotions catch their thermal updrafts.

March 28, 2019.

 

Summer comes fast, as music turns up to full volume. The sky blazes blue and the sun is a celebration of yellow, free and bright. The trees rise to the occasion, donning their best verdant hues, and everywhere are the flowers, the scattered rainbow that they are.

January 12, 2019.

 

The flowers are a new masterpiece each day, changing the frameless scenery, gazing upward at the ever-present sky; they are the warmth of the land that gives thanks to the warmth of the summer sun. They are the rainbow that arises from earth and water, yet can be nothing without those golden rays. Each day of these playful months will come in moments, the gift of the present, lived in barefoot dances, wind-tousled hair, laughter and song... the layers of winter left in some forgotten closet.     

December 30, 2018.

 

Summer comes in her own time, drifting in on a spring wind, wakening with the kind of warmth that flows to the core. Through the windows she sends light, spreading rainbows over the Victorian cream walls. Ted has become enchanted by a patch of blue and violet that slowly stretches out to show the gold and blushed orange. Then there comes a sound that has been absent for the cooler months, the steady buzz of young bees, ready to seek blooms just as pretty as they. I wonder how they'll fare when summer rests in a day or two, saving energy for her next encore, perhaps they will too.

April 19, 2018

 

Under the summer sun I feel the warmth of those brilliant rays, of light granting us new vibrant colours, softly brushing smiles upon faces and hearts. I see the jazz begin in the way folks walk, in the way their eyes dance upon meeting. Perhaps that's why the warmth comes from within just as much, why the playing begins from youngest to old. It's when the laughter gets dialed up and jokes run free; it's when hugs travel on the breeze as sweet as any summer bloom.

April 16, 2018

 

The birdsong drifts as well as any summertime pollen. It comes as magical as any flute, as improvised as deep south jazz, and as soulful as love's kiss. In that moment I am present, feet still and heart open.

March 15, 2018.

 

Hopscotch, with stolen chalk and the sun beating down, was how we spent the last of each Indian summer. Without computers or television we drew the squares on the crumbling street and numbered them. Stones were easy to come by, along with the mud and the sticks it was pretty much all we had. We learned to be creative with our rhymes, and to be honest, they got ruder with each passing year. Our bodies grew, our minds expanded, the street crumbled some more; but always the chalk was stolen and the stones were free.

July 22, 2015.