There’s a breeze coming in off the lake, this hot afternoon in early June. There’s blue sky smiling down at me through a lacy frame of green, green leaves. Summer is in the air, and I am, appropriately, drinking it in from the luxury of an airy vacation hammock. If the air is full of summer, the views are no less so—and so I offer you these vignettes, all visible, more or less, from my leisurely post.
A kayak,
slice of orange against the liquid lake,
dreams of sliding through fleets of miniature maroon lily pads,
suspended on the dainty ropes of their anchored stems,
beneath the deep shadowy green of overhanging trees.
A jeweled beetle climbs relentlessly upwards
as small hands tip a stick back and forth
and inquisitive eyes watch in fascination,
filling with tears when it finally loses patience
and flies away.
Relentless waves
wash a thousand coiled empty snail shells
all the miles
down the long lake.
They come to rest here,
on this smooth spit of sand suddenly rising to block their path—
and so it becomes their final resting place.
And then, chubby baby hands clutch them tightly,
turning them around and around
and over and over
in sheer enjoyment of the sensory shape.
Bare feet,
sandy,
dripping wet,
run up and down long flights of stairs,
earning the right to ice cream cones and fat slices of watermelon.
Ducks dabble along the quiet green edges.
A family of geese tests the calm waters of evening,
with a babysitter in tow, just in case.
Great clouds sail sedately by,
swimmers leaning back against the cushion of a swim trampoline,
squinting into the sunshine to watch them mesmerized,
rocked in the cradle of the waves,
laughing at a joke I’m too far away to hear.
And I leave my hammock to go join them. Because if there’s anything possibly better than celebrating our Father’s good gift of a beautiful day in the stillness of your own soul, it’s celebrating it with others.
“We were like those who dream…then our mouth was filled with laughter and our tongue with joyful shouting…The LORD has done great things for us; we are glad.” (Psalm 126:1-3)
“I will thank you forever, because you have done it. I will wait for your name, for it is good, in the presence of the godly.” (Psalm 52:9)
Rejoicing Hills 