Summer Days

A Poem

“I believe the nicest and sweetest days are not those on which anything very splendid or wonderful or exciting happens but just those that bring simple little pleasures, following one another softly, like pearls slipping off a string.” —L.M. Montgomery, Anne of Avonlea

~

For waking breath of morning light
And sun-struck sparrow’s feathered flight
For airy vastness sweeping clear
Across the dew-draped fields near
For goat-warmth near like rough-spun silk
And hissing song of fresh-foamed milk
For scalloped edge of leaf new-spread
And scent of warm brown baking bread
For garden poppies’ bright-eyed row
For ambling in the oak trees slow
For sun-warmed fruit upon the vine
And filament of spider-shine
For tumbled frolicked sibling shout
Barefoot brown and bright without
For high filled life that bursts within
And for the touch of baby skin
For tangled mass of blooming things
For sisters at the sink who sing
For woodland voice of flooded prayer
And wildflowers in my hair
And stacks of stories heaped and spilled
For tangled toes in stream-cold trilled
For sun-sprayed pine boughs lifted high
Like shining hands to scrape the sky
For misted dusk and evening hour
And rampant gold of cloud-heaped tower
When out from under oak and pine
The lantern fairies sink and shine
For miracle of sound and sight
For vast and singing moon-dripped height
Beneath which I stand over-awed
For this great love, my soul, praise God.