A hummingbird hovers over the threshold
and inspects my red towel hanging on the open door.
I walk up the path and out to the middle of the swinging
bridge, leaning against the cable rail, my back to the sun.
Downstream I see wild ducks submerging, surfacing.
They gather, seven of them, and swim toward me.
A kingfisher hits the clear water, catches breakfast,
then shoots skyward to a cottonwood branch.
Needle-beaked killdeer fly crisscrosses, riding herd
on babies squeaking from atop rounded stones on the bank.
And now a ferret, short brown fur, streamlined,
with a black tuft at the tip of the tail,
emerges from the brush and slides into the Blackfoot
then out quickly, a hobo's bath. I look straight down
through the holes in the catwalk. The current rushes
and roils. I ride backward on an overhead crane.
Hummingbird, chickadee, chipmunk! Observe the naked human
scraping through Hedigan's Fancy for the 500th time.
Are you inspired now to rise even earlier
and strive to be something?

Song Of Summer

There is something in a cricket's song,
In the smell of new-cut grass,
In the crystal stream,
In the dancing beam
Of sunlight through the glass

There is something of summer in a pale blue sky,
In the lullaby hum of the breeze,
In the tiny space
Of a flower's face,
ain the soft, sweet song of the trees.

Rita A. Kramer

Queen's Lace

Fragile and lovely as old lace,
But just a roadside weed;
Tall and slender in regal grace,
And faithful to its breed
Ever growing loosly wild,
With the pose of Nature's child.

Queen's lace, so delicate and white
Along the countryside;
Is a lovely queenly sight
Resplendent as a bride,
A flower no one can ever tame,
Wild and pretty as its name.

Like majesty on her throne
Dressed in royal robe,
With natural beauty all her own,
With no purpose left to probe...
Except the one of duty;
To give the world her beauty.

Edith Shank

The Summer Days Are Come Again

The summer days are come again;
Once more the glad earth yields
Her golden wealth of ripening grain,
And breath of clover fields.
And deepening shade of summer woods,
And glow of summer air,
And winging thoughts, and happy moods
Of love and joy and prayer.

The summer days are come again;
The birds are on the wing;
God's praises, in their loving strain,
Unconsciously they sing.
We know who giveth all the good
That doth our cup o'erbrim...
For summer joy in field and wood
We lift our song to Him.

Samuel Longfellow
(1819-1892)

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