After the Owl: Poetry Friday

I have owed you all this, since you put up with my very grouchy winter mood and drippy winter poetry.

We whinge a lot about the weather in Scotland, about the freak June hailstorms, the incessant rain, and driving wind and the fact that it seems like the body wants to stay in hibernation mode and hang on to warm insulating fat, but the truth is that it’s really lovely here, and I’m enjoying the temperate and modestly warm summer weather. I feel a little guilty almost for not being in California with the breath-stealing wildfires this season; it seems like it’s almost cheating that we’ve had one day that’s been over eighty, and the rest of the time has been days where it has rained every afternoon and the high has been a balmy sixty-eight. It feels like one long springtime, which is why today’s poem is kind of a chuckle. Summer has come in — but we won’t really notice until winter comes back.

Oh well.

Sumer Is Icumen In

Svmer is icumen in
Lhude sing cuccu!
Groweþ sed and bloweþ med
and springþ þe wde nu.
Sing cuccu!

Awe bleteþ after lomb,
lhouþ after calue cu,
Bulluc sterteþ, bucke uerteþ.
Murie sing cuccu!
Cuccu, cuccu,
Wel singes þu cuccu.
ne swik þu nauer nu!

Sing cuccu nu, Sing cuccu!
Pes
Sing cuccu, Sing cuccu nu!

This is not, in fact, terribly patriotic, but I am, of course, in Scotland, which didn’t manage to get away from England, but has the usual lovely summer light and their gorgeous countryside to celebrate today instead. Poetry Friday’s host today, complete with cucumber sandwiches, is In Search of Giants. Happy 4th! Enjoy a summer holiday.