Lambs of the Summer Shepherd: My Poetic Memories of the 1969 Cubs, & Summer of Love

NOTE: I prepared this to be posted on September 24, 2009; however, as Jack Brickhouse so often would lament after another Cubs loss,"...a day late and a dollar short."

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As the 2009 Chicago Cubs season fades from the perennially optimistic hopes and dreams that followed Spring Training, I thought this would be an appropriate time to post a tribute to the 1969 Cubs.

Almost forty years to the date, I wandered despondently through a refuge of wooded Oak trees in a park off of Sycamore Road - a short escape from the NIU campus in DeKalb, IL.

Reflecting and trying to regroup from the most glorious and yet bitterly disappointing Cubs season in my life (at that time - and still remains so), I found a park bench, and began to put my thoughts and feelings into words -desperately trying to lay to rest the whirlwind season of Peace, Love, Woodstock, and the almost Miracle on Addison Street.

The poem that follows was written on that bright sunny September afternoon in those Sycamore woods surrounded by magnificent sturdy Oak trees, ablaze in colorful glory of another fall season; but ironically a season of fall for my beloved Cubbies.

Lambs of the Summer Shepherd

Green sun-soaked leaves of Summer lay heavy,

Drooping now on the tawny deer-like branches

Of October's oak trees.

Patches of crisp, red and gold leaves 

Add plumage to masses of green foliage, 

As Autumn's cold and heavy winds 

Blanket the fruits of fertile Summer and Spring seasons.

Passing by is their golden loveliness. 

In transition is Autumn's revelation.

Winds of Boreas are the harbingers of Winter,

As they twist and toss tiny acorns from the grasps of brawny thrashing oaks.

Boreas bellows he is master of bare plains and chilly skies,

Of icy times, 

When warm rays no longer nurse

The lambs of the Summer Shepherd.

Dedicated to the 1969 Chicago Cubs and fans:

Before, During, After, Forever, &

Someday...