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Summer Is Icumen In




Warm and dry the wind blows. 
Wake up with bedcovers kicked to the floor. It’s warm but we’re unpractised, we’re too hot. Dog stretches out like she’s trying to evaporate.  
Our plan is - work in the garden till sweat stings our eyes, then head to the beach for a swim. 
Have we swum in the sea this year yet? It seems not! 

(I have barely blogged this year too - it is the year of the hard editing, of print and production!)

Search through tired fuzz, all we remember is hail, the strike of hail, and a rainbow.
Whilst thinking, Mr cooks breakfast. 
I discover misdoings of mice in the polytunnel. Some of the sweetcorn will survive, if I guard it. 
The path we dug is mulched, the willow arch sprouts over it, pretty sprigs, tenacious wood. 
Fruit trees flower, fed on compost tea.
Beans newly planted at the base of bamboo arches are wind thrashed, happy. 
Rows of onion leaf tassel twirl. 
Breakfast is ready.
We eat at the old pallet picnic table, laughing, minding the wind won’t steal our pancakes.




Sumer is icumen in,
Loude sing cuckou!
Groweth seed and bloweth meed,
And springth the wode now.
Sing cuckou!

Ewe bleteth after lamb,
Loweth after calve cow,
Bulloc sterteth, bucke verteth,
Merye sing cuckou!
Cuckou, cuckou,
Wel singest thou cuckou:
Ne swik thou never now!

Comments

Geo. said…
Much to do and mousal misdoingings. A busy time! And your book is wonderful!
Lisa Southard said…
Your copy is the one pictured above- caught at the moment when I'd brewed coffee and sat down to think how to inscribe it :-) x

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