The August sun fails
to make it over the trees in our yard, and though the day is warm and dry and
clear, it's chilly in the house. I
promise myself an hour of reading in the side yard where the sun hits, and
there, sounds are hushed, a subdued cricket, bees shunting from flower to
flower, even the cars slipping down the street seem to have silenced their mufflers. The Phlox and Black-eyed Susans stand tall in
the garden, but the daylily blossoms of June have wilted, their stalks browned to straw. In the oak tree, squirrels feast
on acorns, scattering cracked shells all over the patio. But still, even as nature quiets, this is the glory
time, the last two weeks in August, the first two in September, clean and
fresh, the kind of days we’d invent if we were in charge.
College kids have packed up and headed back to their studies. Families take the last weeks of summer away,
up north, on the Cape. Holes open up all around, help wanted signs, parking
spaces downtown, seats available for breakfast at the diner. The sun sets before 8:00. We keep the windows open at night but pull
up a blanket, the bedspread. In the
morning, we rise in low light and shiver, snatch at sweat shirts, warm our hands on cups of coffee.
For these few weeks, we live inside a hush, a yellowing, a soft and muted coasting we are powerless to stop.
We pause to admire all that is left of beautiful, while the season slides.
10 comments:
We're still a long ways off from that, but it sounds nice. And is that in your yard? You still have a lot of flowers!
You could be living here.
Foggy mornings, crickets chirp, heavy dew blankets the pasture, the steps, the cars...
Summer on the wane. It's nostalgic, yet I love coffee and sweatshirts and life. And reading about the place where you live!
Lovely!
Still hot and humid here - summer lasts a long time...but then I think about walking on the beach in November and December and it's all good.... :)
Madeline @ The Shellshank Redemption
I wish summer would last longer *sigh*
I'm enjoying my black-eyed susans too. We've had so many deer in our backyard the past few weeks. They come in to eat the apples and the fawns have grown so much. The weather is beautiful.
In Florida it is still stifling hot and summer feels endless. Most of my garden looks like a dead thing. Really it's just too hard to live in this heat, so the plants just keeled over.
I look forward to that change of season you describe... when it is pleasant to sit outside and the whole world just glows. That sounds really nice.
So lush and beautiful. Lucky you. So dry here in California. Nothing in my garden did well this year. I'll just have to enjoy yours. :)
Ahhh Yesss,, down here too. It was down in the upper 90's yesterday, and that was after the sun went down, but I am afraid that my "old bear" heritage would make me hibernate all winter if it were cold (or even cool), but ya'll do have a beautiful country up "that'a'way"...reckon?
As a New Hampshire guy, I remember those days well. I have been a Floridian for 11 years now and I dread those NE winters - except Go Pats!.
This is lovely, Liza. I felt like I was there in the side yard with you. This time of year always makes me feel a little sad as summer slips away, but time keeps going forward just the same.
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