Summer's End

Google tells me the official end of summer is September 22nd. However, for me it's the night before the first day that teachers go back to school. 

This week is my last week before we go back. I'm always sad this time of year. Not because I have to go back to getting up early and working on school related things, because I did that all summer! 

No, I'm sad because I always want to accomplish so much more than I do. I wanted to spend more days in the sun, more time at the beach, read more books than I did, visit more places than I have. But then again if I had done all these things, I would be sad and frustrated that I didn't work on enough school related things and I would feel totally unprepared. 

It's all about balance. Something I will forever be chasing. 

In the meantime, please share in my farewell to summer and welcoming of school, fall, the smell of sticky notes and sharpened pencils and that amazing feeling of the first blank page of a brand new notebook. 



Summer's End

By Judith Viorst

One by one the petals drop
There's nothing that can make them stop.
You cannot beg a rose to stay.
Why does it have to be that way?

The butterflies I used to chase
Have gone off to some other place.
I don't know where. I only know
I wish they didn't have to go.

And all the shiny afternoons
So full of birds and big balloons
And ice cream melting in the sun Are done.
I do not want them done


Leavetaking

by Eve Merriam

Vacation is over;
It's time to depart.
I must leave behind
(Although it breaks my heart)

Tadpoles in the pond,
A can of eels,
A leaky rowboat,
Abandoned car wheels;

For I'm packing only
Necessities:
A month of sunsets
And two apple trees.



The First Day of School


by Aileen Fisher

I wonder if my drawing will be as good as theirs
I wonder if they’ll like me, or just be full of stares
I wonder if my teacher will look like mom or gram
And I wonder if my puppy will wonder where I am.


Now
Close the bar-b-que


Close the sun


Close the home-run-games we won


Close the picnic


Close the pool


Close the summer


Open school

–Prince Redcloud