SUMMERTIME

The bo-peep world of childhood.

Unblinking luminous eyes.

Nobody had learned to worry yet.

Days that stretched out to the horizon.

Happy as clams at high-water.

A lemonade stand.

Marathon games of Monopoly.

Boys played stickball and stoopball,

roasted "mickeys" on the corner lot.

Scooters built out of orange crates

and big sister's rusty roller-skates

painted red, white and blue

for the fourth of July parade.

Girls never tired of playing "potsy"

and hopscotch , invented gleeful ditties

as they jumped rope to the count of infinity.

Hot summer nights they ran for their lives

never wanting to be caught in the game

of ringoleavio, until mother's pleading

calls summoned them home for the night.

Milton P. Ehrlich