Out of Such Summer

byMILDRED BOIE

THIS is our summer, after frozen spring,
Our trees that fly with joy, our flowers that sing,
Our laughing thunderheads hung on the blue wall
Of our horizon, breaking the night’s fall.
Covering us our sun, thicker than air,
Beneath our eyes at dawn and everywhere
The moment after — white on the prairie roads,
Burning the shadows black, heavy on hay loads.
Bigger the harvest moon, red on the hills,
Turning to gold as gold gathers and spills,
And northern lights sudden and wild and green,
Like water jewels, given and taken before seen.
Up from our childhood the wonderful wail of
trains,
And the morning crow of vocal weathervanes;
In our ears still the human cries of a loon,
The splash of lake gulls breaking quiet noon.
Colder and swifter, on skin and hair, the dive
With water whistling past; the air alive
With pine and pollen, apples, and the dust
Of wheat fields threshing, gold on every gust
Of wind. Out of these joys July-delayed,
Out of such fragrance is our summer made,
Out of such summer grace and love, and thus
Only a step to God, who makes our time and us.