Almost not quite summer

Summer is almost here.

The animal shelters are bursting at the seams

with kneading kittens and the last of the buds have bloomed

into small, hard fruit seedlings, ready to swell and ripen

with the sun's warming rays.

I don't have plans to go berry picking or to sink my

colored toes into the warm beach sand.

Nor do I have my list of summer camps scheduled

in neat and tidy Excel sheet rows and columns,

with matching calendar icons for each child.

No. Summer is almost here, and I am caught

in the in-between.

I am held in the stillness of summer's shadow, unable to step

forward into the future.

Unwilling to embrace its' impeding entrance.

If there is a remote control to life, the

pause button has been pressed on mine.

Oh, to be like the Season, that wild animal of

ritual and routine, oblivious to the inner happenings

of the world and always on the move.

Decisive.

Summer is almost here.

And I am holding my breath so as to delay

the moment where I need

to walk away from you.