June is a summer month, but, all too soon, the warm, lazy days of summer will pass and the chilly winds of autumn will be upon us. I hope I can keep the warmth of summer in my soul, though, to remember when darkness comes early and the flowers fade. And, imagination–the spirit that can’t be dampened no matter what the season. We must lay firm hold of that inner self, the childhood hope and imaginations.
“For him in vain the envious seasons roll
Who bears eternal summer in his soul.”
– Oliver Wendell Holmes, The Old Player
Is summer in your soul? Is it in mine? I mean the best parts of summer–barefoot days, bees busy in the clover, blue skies studded with white puffs of clouds. I’d like to keep those days of warmth and freedom from cold forever, those days of greeting old friends and making new ones, of watching nature rejoicing in the warmth of the sun.
When I was a child, I would lie under a shade tree on a quilt and notice the ever-changing cloud shapes. A youngster has such fun with this simple pastime. Sara and Nathan did that too. “Oh, look,” one would say. “There’s a giraffe. No, no it’s a turtle.” And, on it would go. Days of happy imaginings.
One of my cloud poems was included in Give Your Child a Head Start in Reading by Fitzhugh Dodson, Ph. D, on page 113.
Cloud Animals
by Blanche Manos
Fluffy, friendly dragons float across the sky
Shapes of whales and dinosaurs that swim and soar and fly.
I like to watch the changing clouds, their shapes are fun to see,
And as they frolic on fields of blue, do they look down on me?
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