O Summer!

O Summer, you are so fleeting!

3 weeks of uncomfortable heat, and then you cool.

3 months of temperate weather, when sweaters come and go

but jackets stay hidden.

And then you leave us,

unexpected (though logically, it should be so).

Cold nights fall quickly, and leaves turn red.

Memories of summer days gone by, hang in the air…

The summer of ’90, when I was young and first engaged

in something fast, like summer itself, of only 15 days…

And then we left each other, to fly to other corners of the world.

But summer, you embraced us, as we embraced each other

in the dark sweet corners of the night, with leaves around us

and the night sky overhead, surrounding us with warm breezes.

Yes, now, in my 50s, youth has gone - just as quickly as summer leaves each year.

No longer, do summer flings and romances wait in dark warm places of night.

But like a long Fall, in fearful anticipation of winter, I wait, in the warmth of my bed,

holding out against the cold of night and winter just around the corner.

God, how his lips felt good against mine. God, how I long to touch him once more.

But those thoughts are foolish, when the summer is past. When distances

and decades go by

and responsibilities saddle us with many, many burdens which must be maintained:

kids, schooling, work responsibilities.

My house is colder now. That time between Summer’s end and Fall’s beginning - when

one doesn’t quite want to turn heat on yet, but we double the number of blankets

and open the windows in the afternoon, closing them at night.

So, too, do I turn on my dating apps and scroll, only to reject most of whom I see there...

or ‘like’ but not be ‘liked’ in return (and vice versa).

It is a never-ending game of watching each day pass,

(and of passing each guy by), until

the cold days come, which make endurance key,

and we cry out for summer, once again.

Does old age ever get a summer? A rebirth?

Perhaps with my new commitment to fitness, to diet, I have regained my youth, some –

regained my physical freedom, some…

regained my physical attractiveness…? No…

That comes from timing, and circumstance, and coincidence, and Providence

(none of which have been too obliging, of late).

I wait for winter’s end, although it has not yet begun in earnest –

seeing as Fall is still creeping in. My imagination flees ahead, to try to skip the winters in my life

and leap again to summer. The next romance, the next time of love, the next warmth.

Waiting. Knowing that pain is coming in full-strength. The cold. Yet hoping

that warmth shall be again

and I will be stronger and better aligned

to receive what will hopefully be mine again.

Summer, thou art so fleeting…

but I am glad that you come, again, each year.

Your faithfulness – your glorious reign returned - is that to which

I pin my hope and life.