I’ve bought a guitar
It’s a stranger to me
I’m a stranger to it
But we’ll see what we see
I’m chorded and worded
At least in my head
But the darn thing plays up
And it fills me with dread

I’ve tried with a plectrum
To amplify sound
And notes interlope
Where they shouldn’t be found
It won’t cover the noise
When they gatecrash the party
It just gives them the licence
To act hale and hearty

I’ve seen on the YouTube
What to do with my fingers
Folks assure me it’s easy
But the dissonance lingers
They don’t say Segovia
Ever took their advice
Though they’d make you believe
He learned in a trice

I’ve practised for all of
Ten minutes together
I’ve tried strumming hard
And as light as a feather
I fear my performance
Won’t make youngsters swoon
The beast is high strung
And won’t play to my tune

Now a thousand duff notes
Have torpedoed my cause
And keys are a mystery
That won’t unlock doors
I’ve no hope of busking
Outside Trader Joe’s
With proceeds a pipedream
To add to my woes

Seasons came and seasons went
during months in lockdown spent,
summer took a blazing glance,
quickened the astonished plants
who had waited on the lip
of efflorescence, but a dip
in weather's fickle capering
snatched clement airs and left a sting
of stringent frost, of gale and storm
and crucified the longed-for balm,
while global horrors put a brake
on freedom's joy; the hive-mind's wake
soon clipped the wings of halcyon dreams
beside the sea and gleaming streams,
with obtuse yearning for the Fall,
the 'sere and yellow leaf', and gall
went wishing that the equinox
would ring the changes, burst the locks
so that the season might prove true
to former character and hue
and comply with valediction
and settle hackles caused by friction.

But then a miracle occurred,
the sun from slumber rose and stirred,
recalled the season's closing door
and pushed his purpose to the fore,
pierced through pollution's hellish gloom
and for a carnival made room,
the flowers danced in fine array,
rejoicing they could live their day,
to butterflies and bees play host,
thus melancholy musing lost!

Then followed that beautiful season... Summer....
Filled was the air with a dreamy and magical light; and the landscape
Lay as if new created in all the freshness of childhood.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

One day you discover you are alive. Explosion! Concussion! Illumination! Delight! You laugh, you dance around, you shout.
But, not long after, the sun goes out. Snow falls, but no one sees it, on an August noon.
 
Ray Bradbury

Summer afternoon, summer afternoon; to me those have always been the two most beautiful words in the English language.

Henry James

Summer has filled her veins with light and her heart is washed with noon.

C Day Lewis

August rain: the best of the summer gone, and the new fall not yet born. The odd uneven time.

Sylvia Plath

The busy bee has no time for sorrow.

William Blake 

Even on the most beautiful days in the whole year - the days when summer is changing into autumn -
the crickets spread the rumour of sadness and change.

E B White

 As long as the earth endures,
seedtime and harvest,
cold and heat,
summer and winter,
day and night
will never cease.

Genesis 8:22

 

Me:  Who can this be, I wonder?

Poppy:  It's me.

Me:  No! But this is a good girl. I bet she doesn't turn the garden into an excavation site, or send puthers of cushion feathers over the picture frames.

Poppy:  I'm a good girl, I am.

Me:  So was Eliza Doolittle.

Poppy:  She wasn't up to much.

Me:  Well, she did remember to wash her face and paws. She had an admirer called Henry, just like you.

Poppy:  Oh him. I'm not marrying Henry. His legs are too short. ...Come to think of it, that's quite a handicap.

Me:  Poor Henry, he's such a handsome chap. He'll be heartbroken.

Poppy:  Listen, I'm not marrying anyone. I'm a career girl.

Me:  You mean into the side wall after that cat-shaped item?

Poppy:  I'll give her boundaries! She sashays along the top like she's puffing Vivienne Westwood!

Me:  Knows how to pose, that's for sure. Still, so does the mysterious girl in the picture.

Poppy:  It's me! It's me! It's me! It's my pawtrait! Anyways, I am a career girl. I'm writing a book of furry tails for little pups.

Me:  You don't say!

Poppy:  Yes, I do! I've got an agent and a pawtfolio and everything. And that's my avatar for the fans.

Me:  Unbelievable!

Poppy:  You just can't see me 'cos I'm not lookin' at you.

Me:  I guess you're not looking at the cat, either!