Summer Surprised Me

I went out on the deck this morning and it was suddenly summer.

All during chilly June I’d planted.

The solstice came and went and the days started getting shorter

without summer ever showing its face.

We complained about the endless grey weather every day,

remembering days of swimming and sunburns in May,

which was fantastically warm in the south of France.

I watered, I muttered, I weeded, and I stopped paying attention to the sky.

Until this morning when, still wearing my fleece slippers, summer slapped me in the face,

my flowers asking me, insisting, “silly girl, don’t you even see?”

Sighing, I slip off my slippers and surrender to summer, although it may only last a single day, like this blossom.

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Tags: Pacific Northwest garden

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