Almost September

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I love September, that summer-fall bridge, that month awash in promise and the new, tinged with just a bit of wistfulness. The light still lasts on past supper time, the air is gentle and cut-grass fragrant and the bikes and skateboards seem to wait patiently for their after-school rides. 

Day breaks

Happy National Poetry Month. 

I can't help but love a month 

with 50 degree days and poetry in it. 

Poems:  these artful, tiny treasures, words on a page,

gathered, collected and arranged in a way that can make us 

smile, think, pause, feel, remember, cry and wonder.

Lines that stay a while, like these from Gwendolyn Brooks' poem 

"Speech to the Young: Speech to the Progress-Toward" 

"...Live not for the battles won

Live not for the end-of-the-song

Live in the along."

http://www.poets.org/

https://www.poetrysociety.org/psa/poetry/poetry_in_motion/atlas/chicago/spe_to_the_you_spe_to_the_pro_amo_the_nor_and_hen_iii/

http://www.favoritepoem.org/

http://www.poets.org/poetsorg/poem-day

As pretty as winter has been, hankering for spring. 

Ramblin'

I love a ramble, a couple of hours, the road, the sky and the unfolding:
old barns, snow-covered meadows, a winding stream 
and a shaggy fella who ambles up to a fence, wonders what's what, and 
lingers for a long hello. 
And the horizon stretches wide and blue. 

My neighbor steps out her front door on this very chilly morning as I’m putting stuff in the trunk of car. “I’m goin’ someplace,” she says, matter-of-factly. She’s bundled up in a pink boots, pink striped pants, a hat, coat and mittens. She’s twirling around on her front porch.

These are all the facts I get. She’s five.

 “That sounds fun!” I tell her.

“I like going someplace,” she says and then she’s chasing her big brother around the yard a couple times and back to twirling on the porch. It’s 15 degrees out.

A few details emerge. They're going far, she says, maybe New York, maybe a party. Whenever this someplace is, there’ll be cake.

I think back to five, when I was, when our kids were, and how cozy it was to pile into the car, parents, kids, cousins, headed who knew where together. 
Sometimes someplace is just enough.

Left behind on the beach, a smile to cheer us.

Sudden Snowfall

It swirled, twirled and dusted the landscape - 

and by night the sweet snowfall had disappeared.