A Summer Saturday

A Summer Saturday

A sweaty summer Saturday. A faint breath of wind on the grass. The looping chase of sparrows as they tease each other against the brilliant blue canvas. The sun arching its back, stretching out atop it's pillowed sky, arms of sleepy light raised in every direction. The side lawn lazily drinking the yellowed rays as the lilacs smiled drowsily on the side. 

The front steps, cracked and wise from the last century of steps and bounds, stomps and skips and leaps. Braces himself.

We tumbled down them, a shower of crab apples pattering our blonde heads. Shrieks. Giggles. 

Resounding faintly as I now reminisce. 

The old, dear friend of the steps, a peeling white farmhouse, sighs with a happy creak, watching the children stream out toward her blankets of grass. Her cherry door rubs its knobbed nose, trembling still from the hurried excitement.   

Crunch crunch crunch. Barefoot over the gravel driveway. Toughened feet of farmtown youth. The cool green grass, soothing. 

Around and around we spin, twirling about with our heads swung back, gasping from laughter, bumping into one another from dizziness. Collapsing in heaps. The farmhouse looks over the children, her windows agape, their happiness flitting through. 

A car passes unknowingly, a soft put and whir. Slow Children reads the sign.

We used to argue that we were quite fast. 

Collections of treasures. Dandelions for mother. A clover. A butterfly sighting followed by a squealing chase--no capture. And luck! A praying mantis-- the ultimate possession. A June bug's shell shed against the elm tree. It crackles as we pry it from the bark.

A sweaty summer Saturday. The windowed eyes of the aged Farmhouse, the gapped stone steps, watching the children at play.