Summer is a'comin in (verse)

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Summer is a comin' in.
So said a bard from long ago,
From our antipodes.
Here it is September
And summer is a comin in!
I assured my Malaysian neighbour
To cheer up her doubting mind.
(I was not so sure in mine.)

But we are wearing less now,
Although we are raincoat-trigger-happy.
This Auckland weather I assured her
Is like this. Not like months of
Hot dry days and cold dry nights,
Had in Kathmandu.

Or London weather,
One, sunny day in April
And sunroofs on family cars
Are optimistically, and often
prematurely open, And
The children, not kids!
With sand buckets and spades
Not patiently, enjoying the countryside
The English can boast about,
As the car follows the road
Behind the other sheep
Down the Downs and to
To the beach. To the pebbled beach
That Mathew Arnold knew:
"Listen! you hear the grating roar
Of pebbles",

But little children with innocent love
Burst out through car doors,
Oblivious to adult categories
Of seasons, or warnings,
"Don't get wet, don't get cold,
Come and have a sandwich,
But no swimming for half an hour
After or you will sink like a stone".
Parents and grandparents know,
They remember, and now they envy,
Summer as a child knows it.
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