Summer Sanctus

Here we are in high summer on this Sunday afternoon. While I dislike heat and humidity, I do my best to appreciate the colors, flowers, and gardens of the season. This week I noticed many yellow and orange flowers on my walks. Both photos are of flowers in my neighborhood. 

Once a writing teacher, Linda M. Hasselstrom, and I discussed different kinds of poems. At the time she was (and still is) a published writer/poet and I was a neophyte. That day she differentiated between poems with metaphor and poems of description or what she called windshield poems. When skillfully written, one kind is not better than another but a difference to understand. At least that is how I recall our discussion. 

This week I thought about that long ago conversation. Some ideas appear at close range in the windshield, that is they hit the windshield with force. Other views through the windshield are more expansive and provide a different perspective. I wished I was on a trip to see loved ones and enjoying the Great Plains through a wide angle lens of a windshield or a plane window.

Anyway, this poem came from being in my own backyard. It is a good place to be right now. Constant fretting about the future gets me nowhere except into a state of anxiety. Finding joy in the present moment isn't always easy these days but in an effort to celebrate the season I offer this poem. 

Summer Sanctus

Stretch into altar of dust and green.

Receive sharp tomato scent.

Pick fruit warmed by the sun.

Marvel at Grandmother Spider.

Celebrate monarch over zinnia,

honeybee on basil, ant in grass.

Scrub birdbath, offer clean water.

Forget right or wrong. Love

lavender, make a garden. 

Plant feet above roots.

Breathe from the linden.

Share a breeze with the Earth.

Sing in this sanctuary.

Right here. Right now.

Sing praise for summer day. 

Jane A. Wolfe

Copyright, Jane A. Wolfe