We’re starting down the long, darkening slope of the year as of today. It’s hard to believe that this is as good as it gets. When it’s this sunny and warm and light out, when the birds are chirping at 3 a.m. and the grass is growing at amazing rates, there is no possibility of winter, of long, dreary days of darkness. I’m a bit ashamed of myself that the lightest day of the year is a symbol meaning that’s it, it’s over now, and we’re on the way back down into the darkness. Of course, around December 21st, my heart is always lightened, despite the looming stretch of horror more commonly referred to as February, by the fact that that is the time when things can’t get any WORSE, that we’re on the upswing, that each day the light is returning arc by arc across the face of the countryside.
If I could only freeze (hee! stupid metaphor) this day, this temperature, this golden glow of summer evening. Put it behind glass in a little treasure box, perhaps, with a tiny crystal hammer on a chain and a label saying “break glass in case of emergency.” Then I could open it, let it out, hold my hands over it to warm them, whenever the lack of sunlight and warmth begins eating at my bones.
I came home completely zonked out and tried to take a nap on the couch after dinner, but MAN! It’s so LOUD outside! There is a whole tree full of crows having a reunion or a rumble or a graduation party right across from our backyard and they are so loud they sound as though they are in the room with me. Crows are loud! Also, rude! I like it when I hear the horses nicker, though. I wrote this in an attempt to capture it all:
Summer Sounds
The sunlight has a hum that fills you from within
It plays a silent soothing melody from underneath your skin
The crows, they shout and rumble, a tree-filled cacophony
A chattering of magpies counterpoints with harmony
A whicker from a passing horse slips over to me here
He lifts his head and shakes his mane and perks up one brown ear
The barnyard cat walks silently out from his grassy lair
I purse my lips and whistle, am greeted with a stare
Summer’s full of creature sounds, of sunlight and of air
Full of softly sighing breezes, lawnmowers growling like a bear
Wings shush, a buzzing hush, replete with song am I
The swooping sounds of summer upon me from on high
***
I read all of your comments to Martin and he was very pleased by the responses to his book, and rather solemn by the end.
And now, I need to go knock some more things off my to-do list. Thwack!
Edited to add: A few minutes ago, a gentleman pheasant stopped short during his stroll along the embankment of the ditch dividing us from the farm and screamed his head off for several minutes. The crows are whispering in the very quietest of quiet whispers in comparison. Holy screeching moly!