Today is the first of June. I’m ready for summer. Are you? How was your winter? Did you itch away like I did most of mine?

If you follow this blog, you  will know I contracted scabies in late January and was thankful to get prompt medical care because the itching was the most intense I’d ever experienced.

But things don’t  always go the way we wish. The scabies are long gone, but the itching remains. My dermatologist said the longest any of his patients itched was six months. So I have two months to go to match, even longer to make a record. But I’m not into making records, and I’ve not been successful in convincing my body to give it up.

But that’s why I’m happy it is June. June feels like promise. Marching to Pomp and Circumstance, taking a road trip, smelling the flowers, having picnics, reading novels, and, hopefully, saying farewell to itching.

As I turned over my calendar to June, a poem flashed in my mind–James Russell Lowell’s The Vision of Sir Launfal that I studied in high school with one of my sisters as my teacher.  Remember this famous verse?

And what is so rare as a day in June?

Then, if ever, come perfect days:

The Heaven tries the earth if it be in tune,

Over it softly her warm ear lays….

The pleasantness of the wording and images and rhythm makes me want to sing! Happiness is just around the corner. Grab it. It’s summer!

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Read the entire poem here at the American Verse Project.