I'm Perry from Santa Barbara and I support the slowdown meeting a wide diversity of poets

and their outstanding poems takes my mind and heart to a higher place.

A truth that feeds my day away from the debilitating misinformation or the plagues us.

Join me by making a gift to the slowdown today.

Go to slowdownshow.org slash donate.

I'm Major Jackson and this is the slowdown.

In Vermont, we like to say we have three seasons.

Winter, summer and autumn.

Spring is virtually non-existent.

The cold temperatures hang around well past the spring equinox.

And then it's mud season, really an extension of winter,

when the earth thaws with runnels of melted snow.

Yet, if another cold snap comes along, tire ruts freeze.

Before you know it, the frozen ground jolts you into a ditch.

April is the cruelest month.

Sure, because winter is like an ex that lingers way too long after the breakup.

So when summer arrives, I run as fast as I can into its lushness.

I am making new memories with family and friends that involve nights of alfresco dining,

remote beaches, mountain ranges, and sun-drenched cocktail parties.

Summer is the season that beckons most my senses.

All that fruit bursting its wild colors, strawberries, apricots and peaches.

Whereas winter feels interminable, I am most aware summer's bounty is numbered.

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