Our boy was a child when the good
summer came. He played near
a window in March and heard it sing.
By April he could run outside; the air
bounced off new grass and warmed
everything. He pulled a toy fire engine,
and had a brown puppy.
Light shimmered, and poured on his hands,
head, shoulders. The hours in his little
wagon lay heaped around him. No animal
or teddy bear could sprawl lavishly enough
in that sun, rippled by leaves that gave
wide, sweet, good calm. You could look miles
across a cookie and never see the end.
By fall the weather people could not
believe their charts: Bret was a millionaire
of days he would never lose.
These few lines record that time, for
the annals of the world. There are such
golden things, and all the rest is about them.
Rome rose, and fell, for these.
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