You used to be my favorite without a wink of doubt. “May, the unsurpassable Vineyard May,” I would effuse to mere mainlanders, “riding ashore on perfect waves, your velvet breezes and widening warmth soaking into our bones, your light awakening across greening pastures, emerging leaves holding the softest hues, the pitch and sway of the land still visible through the trees, each day spectacularly tuned to early birds laying their claims and rebuilding their lives.”

Amazing May, month of easy metaphors, making each of us a poet.

But what the hockey puck were you up to this year? Three weeks of forgettable March, five days of July and only a beach walk or two of your seasoned perfection? Really? That’s all you had? I am glad to see you go and welcome June tomorrow — even with her ticks and tourists nipping our heels.

Now to choose a better best. One certainly must sigh for silky September, in all her poignant cool, our exhausted Isle bobbing beneath as the hoards depart in a rush. Ah, but for a hurricane or two an unbeatable month. Or November of course, with those first birch-log fires of fall and celebrating Thanksgiving like we mean it. But its diminishing light dooms its adoption.

Which makes me think of April, the tease, tossing her curls. And I can hear October whining, “What about my spectabulous colors and sunsets, and pulling on that first, cozy sweater?” Not to mention your rainy, windswept, deserted main streets.

How about a serious, solid month like January, noble overseer of all our passages? Or July, yes, July that widens every heart? Nor to ignore December’s grace or even poor, little ole, frozen February, inferior, sure, but still mighty in its own whimsical insistence to be misunderstood in spite of itself.

Ah and August, when the whole world finally breathes deeply, when every dream is possible. Now there’s a month to dwell in!