The Sound of Summer ~ David Budbill

The screened door slamming tells me it is summer.

There are other sounds only in the summer, too.
The hummingbirds moving from
feeder to feeder on the porch, chickadee’s two-note
song we hear early on summer mornings, ravens
croaking back to their aeries on the ledges
every summer evening.

There are other birds too, visitors we hear only
in the summertime, but it’s the screened door slamming
that is the definition of summer for me.

This poem reminds me how very much I love our porch, and the way it allows me to enjoy summer – the way it welcomes summer into the house as a whole.

The very first time we visited this house with our realtor in tow, even as she was carrying on with her list of all the reasons why we should not buy the farm in the first place, I had only to spend a few moments on the porch to know that this house was meant to be our home.

We have an old screen door, too, that goes with the even older door to the porch, which squeaks rather than slams. It squeaks all day long as we (and the cats and the dog) come and go about the business of summer. I never mind it. That door is the portal all all the bliss that comes with summer, especially since summer is so short lived here in the North Country, and I love it (squeaks and all).