Tribute to Summer Gone

Thank you and good-bye to summer's lazy mornings, pjs until noon, flip-flops, popsicles, fresh basil, sundresses, browned skin, peach pie, sprinklers.

And thank you to neighbors who let us stain our fingers with their blackberry bushes and made me remember a poem I love so much.

AUGUST

When the blackberries hang

swollen in the woods, in the branches

nobody owns, I spend

all day among the high

branches, reaching

my ripped arms, thinking

of nothing, cramming

the black honey of summer

into my mouth; all day my body

accepts what it is. In the dark

creeks that run by there is

this thick paw of my life darting among

the black bells, the leaves; there is

this happy tongue.

--Mary Oliver