all the hours we leave behind...

I love my new gazing ball in my garden!  I had wanted one for quite some time, and lo and behold, as we were cleaning out our building at work for all the summer remodeling, someone found a few boxes of gazing balls that were used as donor gifts years ago.  I was delighted to make a home for this one, nestled in among my coneflowers.  I love how it captures the clouds as they drift by.  Sometimes I wonder, if I gaze at it long enough...will memories of summers past drift by as well? 

Perhaps not, but this lovely poem, The Ordinary, by Kirsten Dierking, does a nice job of summoning special memories of summers past...

It's summer, so

I miss visiting Custer State Park with my family...

the pink gingham shorts,

the red mower, the neat rows

of clean smelling grass

unspooling behind

the sweeping blades.

a glimpse of my garden through the deck railing...

A dragonfly, black body

big as a finger, will not leave

the mower alone,

loving the sparkle

of scarlet metal,

seeing in even a rusting paint

the shade of a flower.

I miss my aunt's amazing cutting garden in Indiana...

But I wave him off,

conscious he is

wasting his time,

conscious I am

filling my time

with such small details,

distracting colors,

and I miss my aunts even more (Aunt Mary, Aunt Freda and Aunt Nellie with my mother @ 1965.  I am so blessed to still have Mother and Aunt Freda in my life.)

like pink checks,

like this, then that,

like a dragonfly wing

in the sun reflecting

the color of opals,

like all the hours

we leave behind,

so ordinary,

but not unloved.

My wish for all of us is that today be filled with those ordinary, yet special, moments that bring so much pleasure into our lives...