i just want summer to last

I’m sitting in a black wrought iron chair on the patio, munching a cream-cheesed cinnamon-raisin bagel. I hadn’t meant to eat a bagel. I’d meant to opt for something more healthy–like scrambled egg whites tossed with spinach and tomatoes and onions. But I’m housebreaking a new puppy, and it’s a grab-and-go day.  (We swore there’d never be another dog–that Rose was the last.)

I set my mug down on the grill shelf. We’ve only used this grill two or three times this year. I’ve never even gotten around to cleaning it, but it’s the only above-concrete surface. The picnic table and benches are in the garage still waiting to be stained.

The green plastic tables are still in the shed. What used to be the herb garden is overgrown with mutant-tall Queen Anne’s Lace, and a garter snake slithers down the edge of the rocks lining it.

The area around the bird feeder’s overgrown, too, with weeds and a couple volunteer sunflowers that tower over the shepherd’s hook. I think a grate hides in there somewhere. It’s where we always mean to have a little camp-style fire on a cool night. The grass needs mowing, the leaves are turning–and I just want summer to last.

The air vibrates with cicada songs and crow caws, with the steady hum of highway  in the background. The grass glistens all dew drenched, and cabbage butterflies skim soybeans.

But the moments, they pass, and I want them to stop. I want this moment–cool morning breeze and sun’s heat rising and puppy chewing my toes–to last.

I just want summer to last.

Wesley scatters sand, bounds after a stray butterfly, and when he comes back with a pinecone, I pick a slug off his wet belly.

And I want his exuberant joy and delight in discovery.

The black-eyed Susans are holding their own, but the daisies are fading, and I just want summer to last.

The other day I retrieve the ball as Grace pitches it at a pink-ribboned “strike zone” on the fence.

And Lillee runs and puckers, and bubbles rise and pop and float away like so many dreams and seasons.

But one stray bubble rests in mosquito bush arms.

 

I just want summer to last.

But it will pass in its season because everything has a season, and I’ll be another year older when it returns, maybe, God willing, because all things things of earth will eventually pass away like bubbles in the breeze. So we must carry these moments in the bubbles of our memories.

But I just want summer to last.

 Still holding onto summer,

Sandy

Joining Lisa-Jo and company on the prompt last–though I’m pretty sure this writing lasted more than five minutes.