Summer Comes

when the smell of freshly-fallen rain sizzling on the sidewalk drifts through open kitchen windows,

when the first brilliantly arrayed wildflowers lift their open petals to the sun to welcome busy bees and floating butterflies,

when the House Wrens build their tiny stick nests in boxes and call for a mate with unrelenting charm and gusto,

when you catch the deep red of a ripe strawberry hiding beneath translucent green leaves waving in a light wind,

when gnats stand guard outside your screen door waiting to swarm any who dare to enter their buzzing, biting domain,

when cherries, pale red and yellow, poke their heads through clusters of leaves on squat, bushy trees,

when you find the first cinnamon-brown egg from your spring chicks buried beneath the pine bedding in the coop,

when your little explorers ride in an old, red canoe together for the first time, laughing brightly and trailing their small hands in the clear, cold lake water,

when your trusty orange kayak gently carries you down a river sheltered by stiff green reeds and sweet-smelling water lilies,

when the smell of smoldering fire mixed with the smell of brats for dinner trails up from the pit in the back yard,

when you feel the rush of water and bubbles all around as you slip off a paddle board into a shallow, sandy bay,

when you see both sparkling stars and flashing fireflies at night and sometimes can’t tell the difference between the two against the velvety twilight sky,

and summer goes.

God makes all things beautiful in his time.