We are all moved by the world we live in, by our environments. Our surroundings inform how we feel and what we do every day. Right now, Maine is just bursting with life. Fruits, vegetables, trees, marsh grass, flowers… everywhere you look, smell, feel, taste, hear, it’s lush, green, sensuous, sweet, inspiring… it’s ecstasy.

We take our inspiration where ever it comes from, and inspiration is in abundance, all around us today.

Wendy, my favorite blogger, has been capturing the highlights as we try to take it all in, chronicling the season in garden, food, and song.

The State Theater in Portland, ME has brought so much great music to us lately that we revel in the excess. Not long ago we pondered driving to Boston to see a band we like. Now there are so many coming to Maine we have to pick and choose or we’d soon be broke (and forget what our children look like.) Avett Brothers, Michael Franti, Emmylou, Beirut, Elvis Costello… the list goes on.

We were lucky to catch The Decemberists w/Sara Watkins last week, and one of their new songs has a bead on summer’s onset. It’s called June Hymn (and it’s where I borrowed the title for my post today.)

June Hymn

Here’s a hymn to welcome in the day
Heralding a summer’s early sway
And all the bulbs all coming in
To begin
The thrushes bleating battle with the wrens
Disrupts my reverie again

Pegging clothing on the line
Training jasmine how to vine
Up the arbor to your door
And more
You’re standing on the landing with the war
You shouldered all the night before

And once upon it
The yellow bonnets
Garland all the lawn
And you were waking
And day was breaking
A panoply of song
And summer comes to Springville Hill

A barony of ivy in the trees
Expanding out its empire by degrees
And all the branches burst to bloom
In the boom
Heaven sent this cardinal maroon
To decorate our living room

Chorus

And years from now when this old light
Isn’t ambling anymore
Will I bring myself to write
“I give my best to Springville Hill”

Chorus