A Guest poem for summer

On July 4, weather permitting, four children--one baby, a 1-year-old, a toddler and a grown-up 4-year-old--will grace my back yard with their parents, their parents' parents, aunts and uncles and cousins galore. Anticipating that, here is a summer poem by Edgar A. Guest pulled from Collected Verse of Edgar A. Guest, published by The Reilly & Lee Co. of Chicago in 1934.
This poem is for the children. All children.

THE SUMMER CHILDREN

 

I like 'em in the winter when their cheeks are slightly pale,

I like 'em in the spring time when the March winds blow a gale;

But when summer suns have tanned 'em and they're racing to and fro,

I somehow think the children make the finest sort of show.

 

When they're brown as little berries and they're bare of foot and head,

And they're on the go each minute where the velvet lawns are spread,

Then their health is at its finest and they never stop to rest,

Oh, it's then I think the children look and are their very best.

 

We've got to know the winter and we've got to know the spring,

But for children, could I do it, unto summer I would cling;

For I'm happiest when I see 'em, as a wild and merry band

Of healthy, lusty youngsters that the summer sun has tanned.

 

 



Google images

 



Seventy degrees by dusk in central Arkansas

For the first time in several weeks, I took the old notebook, pen and newspaper outside to the porch swing. It was 50 degrees at 8 am.

HAIKU
sunny winter day
titmouse on the gutter sings
and doves call
~~~
a lone goose flies
into the sun's round brightness
this first day of Lent
~~~
broken branch dangles
and sways on the old oak tree
I hear spring peepers
~~~

RUSH HOUR
Mocker
on the high wire
tries to out-sing the noise
of passing cars this warm winter
morning
~~~

The wind kicked up as predicted, so I betook myself and my materials back inside to the dining table where I not only read/write, buy occasionally eat.
Later on toward dusk, I took the puzzles and once again sat in the swing.

HAIKU
warm winter dusk
the sounds of children outside
spawning memories
~~~
as dusk falls
my eyes and the newsprint
words fail to connect
~~~

c 2012 by Pat Laster dba lovepat press