No. 334: Slurp! (Welcome to Summer)

No. 334, "Slurp!" by Tom Wills, June 2016.

Welcome to summer.
Welcome to ice cream cones, sprinklers and swimming pools.
Steaming pavement.
Thunderstorms and cooling rain.
Air conditioning!
Hello to flowers and bees -- and cicadas.
Frogs, toads and snakes alive!

The soil is warm, the plants are green and they are reaching for that sunshine.
How they have ached for it. My pale self, too!
My hibernation has ended, the coats and boots are thrown into the closet.

Birds have had their babies; the mice have, too. They are out of the tool shed and into the woods.
Deer are roaming the wooded path and sniffing at the garden plants -- undeterred by the dogs and ropes and tomato cages.
People, too, are roaming: To shores, to mountains, to fields and valleys.
To adventure!

We are alive again.
Full-on garage sale season is here.  Finding treasures.
Fixing fences, digging trenches.
Moving things, shaking them up.
Wax on, wax off, wax on.
Paints and stains.
Kids are scratching up their new Christmas bicycles.
The car windows and tops are down, boats are off the docks, clothing is light and tans are darkening.
Music can be loud again!

Oh, how I wish that it would last for more than four months. Just when my bones have thawed, it seems the aching returns.
Our treat won't last so we must slurp up as much of it as we can, and quickly.
Everything is sweet for now.
Enjoy those ice cream cones of summer before they melt away.