Summer lingers on,
in butterflies’ bright wingbeats
and bee-bowed flowers.
Succulent berries
ripen in golden hedgerows,
cobwebbed with dawn mist.
Birds seek southern sun,
while industrious squirrels
cache abundant hoards.
Brisker winds rattle
apples down: speckled, blemished,
but lusciously sweet.
Children kick through leaves,
giggling, hurling handfuls—
pretending they’re snow.
Deborah writes at an old desk surrounded by five hundred pet bugs.
