Dreaming of Summer...

I know a bank where the wild thyme blows.
Where oxlips and the nodding violet grows,
Quite over-canopied with luscious woodbine.
With sweet musk-roses and with eglantine:
There sleeps Titania some time of the night.
Lull'd in these flowers with dances and delight.

~ A Midsummer Night's Dream

Thank You Lord For Handprints On the Walls

This morning I was washing walls

--a job I love to hate--

and I'll be honest

I was murmuring

about all the child-size handprints

that were

...everywhere!

Around every light switch

in every room

gliding up the stairway

and through the halls.

I remember the last time

I washed those walls.

They stayed clean

for exactly five and a half hours

...then school got out.

In a few more years

they'll be fingerprinting

around the light switches

and through the halls

of a college dorm.

And I'll be sitting here

in my sparkling house

with freshly painted walls

wishing desperately

to see

those grubby little handprints

once more.

~Diane Dekker 1988

Gotta' Love Shakespeare's Witches

1. Witch. Thrice the brinded cat hath mew'd.
2. Witch. Thrice and once the hedge-pig whin'd
3. Witch. Harpier cries; 'tis time, 'tis time.

1. Witch. Round about the cauldron go;
In the poison'd entrails throw.
Toad, that under cold stone
Days and nights has thirty-one
Swelt'red venom sleeping got,
Boil thou first i' the charmed pot

All. Double, double, toil and trouble;
Fire burn, and cauldron bubble.