Summer Days with Longer skirts

When I was a child, did summer days

Wear longer skirts than now? Were garden roses more clever

or did their fragrance just know better how

to follow an admirer all the way down the street?

When I was a child, once school vacation had begun,

The gold tinted hours stretched out, accordion-like,

as they never since have done.

Always room in their pockets, it seemed,

for yet another game of tag, a few extra moments

at the park. One more chance for a little boy or girl to coax a super-shy squirrel

to approach, and win a bit of leftover cracker jack.

When I was a child, did summer days

wear longer skirts than now? Did they smile non-stop, were they really lovelier?

Close beside my companions and me for weeks on end,

swishing their airy petticoats charmingly,

were they chasing away shadows called cares,

making them wait patiently behind fences somewhere

until we grew older? Laura Scribner, Goshen