remembering the ephemeral childhoods of summer

what words have ploughed the furrowed sky

what eyes have widened with the why oh why

did i not see the end was nigh

did i not feel a cold damp sigh

that warm suns slipped away the days began

down all the lanes of childhood shrieking ran

bird nested egg shelled the colours shine

for every summer that said that it was mine

forever mine and never so to end

forever blue and warm and so my friend

i gave my heart away that summer’s day

to fishing the running trout stream ere i die

of chasing the chasing of the cuckoo 

of the cuckoo again across the way

the copses in the reed beds seem to say

that they cannot get me in this marshy goo

and do you know how the skylark flies

so high that the sky is all there is

the blue so blue that eyes surmise

that there is no end to its song of days

spent hovering across the moorland 

purple pollened and lizard ran from

the bravado fire at the children’s hand

in the land of the chasing man

in the land of rivers run

the land of the fox and hare

of beetles grubbed in fun and

here and there and now and then

there is always tomorrow

when the bloodied knees have dried

and the i didn’t i didn’t cried

and all that that implied

when the moon sheets tight

wrapped a candle’s corner

sliding to sleep goodnight

at memory’s border

until the bickering of the morning birds

bids fly on heels across the glory fields

where transience in infinite seems in order

a smile in memory of the squirrel hoarder 

and then summer to autumn finally yields

and ephemeral says it’s long goodbye 

as childhood’s shortening summers fly