SUMMER SUBLIME

SUMMER SUBLIME
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The easy swing of summer
surrounds me,
caresses,
cradles me in languid comfort,
and I,
I am like a cooing babe,
safe in its mother's arms,
lulled by the sighs,
the murmuring of soft breezes,
the swish
of gently swaying boughs.

I inhale the scent
of trees, and grass, and flowers, and earth:
intoxicating tonic for the senses. And
the tapestry of sound,
the buzzing of insects, the songs of birds,
and the rustling of leaves in the wind,
is the music of summer.
Like a lullaby,
it brings me to that dreamy state
on the edge of sleep,
wherein reality is blurred.

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I am a chickadee
zipping here and there,
smilingly - happily diving
through alleyways of green to snatch
a crunchy seed in my beak.
Then,
momentarily,
attracted by the sight of the man
stretched out on the grass below,
I alight upon a branch.
Looking left and right,
with the rapid twists of neck
that denotes my kind, I shout:
"chick-a-deee-deee-deee-deee-deee".

Oh silly me,
the man will now awaken, but
then perhaps he
may have a nut for me.

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A pine cone,
bouncing off my forehead,
startles me awake to look
into the eyes,
of a mischievous, happy, chickadee,
and,
for a crazy moment, still half asleep,
I think
that I am looking at me.

Oh how sublime is summer!


Lakeside9, june, 1998