Wishful Summertime

Rain falls like blueberries on hot oatmeal, leaving small wet slaps on the sidewalk and black tar. Far away, over the brick houses and glistening emerald trees, a quiet rainbow rises, spreads its color and then fades back into oblivion. Summer is here in all of her shining glory, and we sit and watch her come with glorious splendor and wish that she would stay forever. She’s subtle, contemplative, whimsical and mysterious. You cannot tell when she’ll touch the grass and sky one last time and whisper out her final breath. So you step out into the gleaming sun as long as you can, touch the raindrops and let them fall, laughing, unto your face, and run through the wet and wild wood as long as your legs can carry you.

Cicadas carry the cry of summer, as do the bullfrogs, singing their lazy, wet tunes. June bugs splatter on your windshield as you hurry home, windows down, wind whipping through what is left of your once combed and calmed hair. You don’t care about combed and calmed hair on summer nights. Just like you don’t care about your perfect makeup on your perfect face, keeping an illusion of perfect skin. Sun catches the freckles on your face and spreads them finely and beautifully across your nose and cheeks and forehead. And you care less, for everyone around you (except for the gloomy, nerdy types that stay inside and stay pale and weak all summer) have been kissed by the sun and show that same glow of exuberant life.

On Mondays, you glance outside 487 times each day as you putter at your desk and putter at your keyboard, for the birds sing the summer song and their tune reaches your ears from the open window. How can you help but sigh, for to be out there amongst the birds and bees and creeping things, barefoot and running through grasses and woodlands and meadows, is really where you ought to be.

Couldn’t the whole world just stop and run barefoot in the summertime?