SUMMER INTRODUCES ITSELF

Hello there, allow me to introduce myself. I am summer. I’ll blow into town on the June solstice and will hang around until the summer equinox. I’m warm and giving. In fact, I’ll give you cantaloupes, sweet corn, fireflies and baseball. I’ll give you enough grass to cut to keep you busy and sweating.

I’ll give you a relentless sun that singes all skin showing to produce that golden tan, that sometimes turns into skin cancer years later. I’ll give you backyard barbeques, spitting sizzling flesh dripping on white hot charcoal briquettes and corn on the cob wrapped in tin foil with friends and family all sitting around more naked than needed to beat the heat. Any way you look at it, I’ll give you plenty of exposed meat- both animal and human.

I’ll heat your pools and oceans so you can splash and play all day. I’ll give you humidity. Boy, will I give you humidity! I’ll turn the great outdoors into one big boiler room, complete with hissing steam from broiling car radiators.

I’ll give you twisters that spin from the wind to drop down on your towns, trailers, homes, businesses and farms. Then I’ll suck your lives up into the sky. I’ll interrupt crystal blue days to pour on your parades and picnics and soak your charcoal and chicken.

I’ll burst the bellies of heavy black clouds and let loose Niagara Falls. I’ll short circuit the sky and shoot lightning bolts down to topple your trees and knock out your own puny electricity. Periodically, I like to remind you who is really in charge here. I’ll give you beautiful days during the work week and wash out your weekends. They’re your weekends, not mind. I don’t get any days off.

If you’re young, I’ll give you the best music of the year to blast from boom boxes, iPODS and car radios. You’ll remember my melodies the most because they’re the soundtrack of your youth that’ll hum in your head till death do you part.

I’ll give you sun-splashed rivers so cool that you’ll flock to their banks, float on their currents and frolic in their depths. I’ll give you long lazy days, where lifting a chilled glass to your lips to take a sip is as energetic as you’ll get. I’ll give you balmy nights where you can stretch out your porches and in your backyards to breathe in my bouquet under my moonbeams.

I’ll give you romance with hand holding in the moonlight and kissing that shoots off sparks in the dark. I’ll give you a first love to tumble toss your head or a new love to jump start your heart or renew an old love under the eaves of my warm shadows.

I’ll give you the time of your life. Then I’ll be gone to let the leaves fall where they may.