Her Summer

To understand a tree how it lives in the summer fails in fall dies in the winter reborn in spring An endless phoenix cycle around and around as seasons come and seasons go summer the height of their year This summer will last, the five-year-old said the leaves will not go brown nor crackle underfoot they will not fall from the branches like wispy little martyrs the glossy green growing shivering, frail, weak. This summer will be different, the six-year-old proclaims The summer will last The grass would stay warm the sunshine would be perfect In between the pale pink blossoms and nature's own fireworks everything was green And yet despite the dreams summer would end taking away the cartwheels in the warm grass and the carefree laughter in the treetops Autumn would come with reds and golds browns and orange pulling down the green curtain of life Then, too soon, snow would come in a flurry coating the trees and the dead gray ground shining painfully in the sunlight But each frozen branch would prevail push through and grow blossoms of pink and white delicate as glass So the cycle came and went summer breezes fall storms winter snow spring flowers Now the six year old is old too old to run in the green hear the chirps of the evening crickets laughter, clear as sliver bells But she had something better now a husband so perfect and true With green eyes the color of leaves and deep brown hair like fertile soil And his laugh reminded her of sunshine bursting through a cloak of emeralds finding the child beneath He was like summer. Her summer.