Summer Reading
/As they discover the magic of good books,
I can't help but write in rhyming couplets!
I finished it
He tumbled out of his room, wiping wet from his eye
and smiled, accomplish, then sighed,
"Well, I finished it."
"Was it good?" I asked over the stove
and he nodded it was so...
So good, he's sad he finished it.
Two dogs with their boy, a hatchet in hand
So like my son who longs to be a man
But he's not finished yet.
This growing up wild and growing up free
and growing up reading in the crook of a tree
Till we've finished it.
But the day will come with he's grown up and gone
And the books on his shelf will sing out like a song,
"Well, we finished it."
by Wendy Speake
For my oldest, who cries in just the right spots.
I love you.
Then there are days that turn to weeks in mid-summer, when visitors come and church camp leaves them exhausted, with no time left for reading. And in the empty space of our vacant home, when guests have left and it's just us, alone, the boys whine and cry and hit and I don't understand. Until I understand. And then I say, "Okay, boys, it's time to go find your book. Come to the couch or go to your room, and find where you left off."
They cry, "This is summer!" But once they are a chapter in... they remember the miracle.
Summer Reading
It doesn't happen every summer day,
like I purposed each one would go.
30 minutes of reading literature
on the couch together, or all alone.
But days when it does and times when we do
Peace descends in the quiet of each room.
And the rythm of our breathing slows down,
For mother and child, amidst imagined sounds.
The neigh of a horse on Herriot's Farm,
Boyish Laughter rising from Plumbfield's barn,
The crackling hot breath from evil Smaug's snout,
The poetry of springtime calling Mole out.
Hound dogs howling, chasing coons up a tree,
Pirate chantey's mingling with salt from the sea,
A lion roars and four children bow down,
The chronicles end, and now there's no sound.
The story's ended, the journey's been traveled;
The very best summer vacation's unraveled.
With book in hand and sweet smelling pages,
Cover to cover, transcending the ages.
The spine bares the title, cracked open and worn,
Bidding us, wooing us, back in the morn.
by Wendy Speake
Dedicated to three boys on the couch,
and one little girl, Sophia, who read me Heidi tonight.
Incase you are curious, my oldest is ten and reads good pieces of literature, while the youngest sounds his way through early primers at six. Then there's the eight year old who chooses one book, and I choose the next, then he chooses one, and so on. He chooses Diary of a Wimpy Kid, then I choose Robin Hood, He chooses Captain Awesome followed by my choice, White Fang. Whatever it takes, Mamas... Whatever it takes!
