Tag Archives: summer

Weekly Photo Challenge: Season

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11

a shade of green

for every promise

that summer makes

crabtreefalls

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The Girl in the Purple Dress (for June)

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34

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Her name was June, but she left in May,

before the sunflowers could bloom and ask

for more days.  In the stone church, whispers

spoke of the claim: cancer, a brain tumor.

Stolen summer laid her cold, draped in flowers

taken in their bloom. They would die soon. 

I kept my head bowed, listened for June,

waited for the preaching, sobbing, and hymns to end.

In the front of the church, in a purple dress

with a black bow in her hair, June’s daughter sat;

I knew her well. She looked straight ahead and made

no sound, and that is why I kept my head down.

And when the cars were gone, and I was alone

I wept, and I wept to the church and through June.

The last months of her life, when the brain tumor

grasped and haunted her head, June had changed.

And her daughter, so many days, so many different

colored bows, would tell stories of the crazy things

her mom would do and stay. And it wasn’t June.

It wasn’t your Mom. I cry because we have lost

part of summer, but I weep for her girl in the purple dress,

and the June she remembered as she sat on those steps.

Frozen in the Moment

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9

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I keep them frozen in the moment of joy,

soaring through southern summer heat

with squeals and laughter that only linger

in tender youth. Their toes point like dancers,

hands reach skyward – up, up, up –

it’s all out there for them to seize,

a sky of possibilities, where each will find

her own blue, create her clouds.

Time may move, but I keep them here, safe,

in this place, where their summer days at the lake

pass gently, with joy and promise. As long as I

hold them here, in a golden frame,

they shall never be swallowed up

by the dark, cold waters beneath them.

 

 

Soaring and Letting Go

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3

Let go let go let go

Fly from where you stood,

your feet mired in the thick, angry mud

of disappointment and wrong turns.

Your body is no longer weighed down,

like rain-soaked earth.

It all falls away, sweet raindrops

from a summer cloud.

Let go let go let go

The sun lifts you, pulls you in

and you fly, leave it all behind,

freeze there in your mind,

soaring, silent, set free,

then eased into the azure water below,

Let goImage