In Chronological order:
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London heat Wave by Ray

Two hot days in May;
Did you enjoy your Summer
In England this year?

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Porch Pastime by Rosey

Spring brings the renewal of the porch pastime. This is the annual event of the first time sitting on my front porch swing in the early spring. It’s a joyous day to get out the bottle of cleaner and paper towels and clean the porch swing and other furniture adorning our front porch. You need to understand that this porch swing is a lifelong friend of mine. We grew up together.

We live in a hundred year old house with half of its lifetime being home to my family members. My grandparents were the first people in our family to own this home and my grandfather spent almost three years in rebuilding the front porch of this old house. My grandmother’s most joyous day I believe was when he finally hammered the last nail in the porch. I have a picture montage passed down to me of the beginnings of reconstruction of the porch to the final product complete with concrete planters and a chair that still reside on the porch to this day. Each treasured picture has a notation in my grandmother’s handwriting of what phase of construction my grandfather was in.

I spent many a spring and summer day on this front porch swing as a child. Eating watermelon with my cousins and playing house on the front porch are precious memories to me. With fondness I remember these times when I sit and ruminate on my front porch in early spring.
I also daydream of what improvements I will make to my flower gardens in the coming months, as I sip my sweet tea and listen to the chirping of the cardinals and robins. I have had many thoughtful moments swinging.

From early spring till the first bite of early frost in the fall, my porch swing is one of my best friends. The joy of watching “hummers” feeding off the Salvia or one of my feeders is certainly one of my most enjoyable times on the porch. Sitting with my husband and children on the swing is another memory I will carry with me all my life. A sight to behold if you were to drive by my house on a summer day as the three of us squeeze together for a sit on the porch. It’s becoming more of a challenge with each passing year as the children grow into teenagers. I can only pray that some day they will remember the porch swing with as much fondness as I have.


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Flowers by P. Dovetonsils

Flowers bloom in fields
Hay fever causes much discomfort
Wish my meds really worked

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Sand by P. Dovetonsils

Walk along the beach
grey sand between your toes doesn't
show houses stood here.

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Cruel, Cruel Summer by Ray

It’s the indignity of it I can’t abide. There is part of me that remembers our primal state, when winter was a time to conserve and consolidate, drawing strength from our expanse, not a time to shiver, denuded, reduced – I can hardly bring myself to say it – pruned.

You won’t spare me a glance now until spring. Oh, but it will be a different story then, won’t it? You’ll crouch over me and savour my smell. You like it so much, of course, you’ll sever part of me and take it away to sniff at your leisure. But I won’t play that game with you; I’ll rot, and let’s see how you like that smell.

My sweet scent isn’t for you, anyway. The thorns are for you. Before you lot came along, we were left alone because of those. It was a good system. We were afforded respect. When we seeded, our children would grow in our shadows, where we could shelter and nurture them. Now you people rip our children from us and take them away. It would be better to be barren. You are so cruel.

Ah, but there was a time when you respected our thorns, wasn’t there? Do you still tell your young the story of the sleeper? Just one (soapy mouth) was all it took, and she slept for years. That is a trick I’d like to have still available to me. Would you still want to chop bits off me, at the cost of a fifty-year coma? I thought not.

Well, I can feel the warming rays now. Soon, scores of little buds will itch to open. I know exactly what you have in store for them and there is nothing I can do about it. As I say, there’s an indignity about this butchered winter state, but I often think it is kinder than the whole cycle of hope, growth and carnage that summer represents.

I wish I still had that power to induce the long sleep. I am just not sure whether I would use it on you or on myself. It’s definitely getting warmer. Here we go again.
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THE DARK SIDE OF SUMMER by EHlawyer

It’s almost summer, rebirth for us all;
The sun and the heat, golf and softball;
Water and beach, barbecued chicken and ribs;
And the fear of fountain pen users: Sand on our nibs

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A summer poem by wdcav1952

Winter breath yields
Sunflowers
Summer gold comes

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An Afternoon

Arm in arm we stroll
Through a wisteria arbor
Gnarled by time and tangled beauty
Brocaded with clusters of
Velvet violet petals and black bees

Cascading Japanese maples
Abundant with gossamer laced leaves
Drape amber veils upon the path
As tender blades of lime green grass
Tickle bare ankles and toes

Van Goghian blue irises
Paint a floral stream along a trail
While tongues of crimson salvia lick
Tree trunks with their tiny flames

A mountain range
Possesses the horizon
Brazen with vivid hues
Emboldened by the new sun
Awaiting the season's last rain

The world is wide-awake with color
And budding fruit bears
All the hope that is Spring


Copyright Kelly Cressio-Moeller 2006

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by Richard

From a chrysalis
Of ice emerges the soft
Vernal butterfly.

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The feather of your breath by Polyhistor

The feather of your breath
And tall grass don´t bother me
Jump in a haystack
Give me this summer and I´ll laugh myself away

Your plans are paper-thin
And the leaves are razor-sharp
Your mind is barefoot
Give me a hint whether or not you´re on your knees

Talked you out of your plans
Your eyes they bother me
Shiny and sky blue
Remember me of what I´ve done to hold you back
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The Man and I by J. Rodriguez

In a corner I wait alone as the rains come and go. A renewal of the cycle for some; a renewal I will never see. I sit and wait. Time and my nest. And the occasional visitor brought to me by the breeze. I watch guard each night over those I will have preceded. I watch the sun rise and fall each day; just as they will. A man each night I see through the window below my home in the corner. He watches me sometimes. He talks to me as if I understand. I do and don’t. He sits there for much of the day on the other side of the glass. And he’s there almost every night when I emerge to build my web. Sometimes he’s there until the sun comes up, working away diligently, as do I. We share the silence, the first rays of day, and then depart. One night he came out to look at me and my web glimmering in the light of the full moon. He stood there thoughtfully and whispered words that were lost forever to the wind. I stood there quietly, returning the gaze, and in my own way whispered back. And I understood, as he must also, that the river of time and the seasons that I will witness but once will continue long after we share our last moonlit night together. Until then, together, and not, across the glass, he in his world, I in mine, united in our finitude.

Still time to submit an entry for the contest.

K

Getting close to the end of the contest please PM them to me and I will put them all together for voting.

K

Definitely some talent in this group.

Thanks for doing this, Kurt.

William

Good luck everyone!

Ray

lotta talent there.

Great job everyone!

Really enjoyed reading the entries. Thanks to all that entered the contest...And thanks to Kurt for spearheading it.

Best, Ann