It's another nature-themed -- and sadly severely lyrical -- entry. I couldn't help myself. It's that time of year, you know.
I lay outside for a while this morning (ostensibly reading criticism, but intensively dozing) and I thought, as I lay there, what a deeply memoried sound early summer is.
In Virginia, where I've lived all my life, early spring morphs almost directly into early summer. We have the cold snaps of march and early april, the windy days and the drippy days, and then suddenly, you walk out your door one morning and there's that deep-green color on the grass, there are the fledgling birds and the soft, skinlike waving hands of the maple leaves, there is the hum of lawnmowers and the scent of warm earth -- it's early summer. Midsummer brings the bake and sweat of July; late summer the held breath and dazed june-bugs of August, with its growing chorus of cicadas, but early summer is all sweetness and...not precisely melody, but tune.
It occurred to me this morning that while I primarily experience mid- and late summer through the touch of them on my skin (and, partially, through their smells -- hot evergreen, sweat, sunblock, stewing trash, grilling), the important sense, to me, for early summer is sound. As I lay on the chair in the yard, I heard the birds (none of them particularly melodious, here, with the exception perhaps of the mourning dove's coo) raising their voices to, but not quite against one another; the little hopping and shuffling sounds of things building and rebuilding nests; the murmur of wind through leaves not quite at their height, leaves that don't yet make the full-fledged wave sound of late summer, but are instead, to continue the analogy, more like ripples. Early summer is the time for creeks with tiny fish hopping in and out of them, for earthworms with their tiny crunching sounds, for baby animals and small plants, for delicacy.
I guess it's obvious that while I favor the warm months in general, these early ones are my favorite. I love the laze, even the oppression, of late, solid, heat, but I am exhilarated, as most living things are, by the early, tender months. And though they're glorious to gaze on, for sure (no flowers are prettier, though we had a sadly short run of daffodils, my real favorite, this year), most of all, I like at this time of year, to listen.
I lay outside for a while this morning (ostensibly reading criticism, but intensively dozing) and I thought, as I lay there, what a deeply memoried sound early summer is.
In Virginia, where I've lived all my life, early spring morphs almost directly into early summer. We have the cold snaps of march and early april, the windy days and the drippy days, and then suddenly, you walk out your door one morning and there's that deep-green color on the grass, there are the fledgling birds and the soft, skinlike waving hands of the maple leaves, there is the hum of lawnmowers and the scent of warm earth -- it's early summer. Midsummer brings the bake and sweat of July; late summer the held breath and dazed june-bugs of August, with its growing chorus of cicadas, but early summer is all sweetness and...not precisely melody, but tune.
It occurred to me this morning that while I primarily experience mid- and late summer through the touch of them on my skin (and, partially, through their smells -- hot evergreen, sweat, sunblock, stewing trash, grilling), the important sense, to me, for early summer is sound. As I lay on the chair in the yard, I heard the birds (none of them particularly melodious, here, with the exception perhaps of the mourning dove's coo) raising their voices to, but not quite against one another; the little hopping and shuffling sounds of things building and rebuilding nests; the murmur of wind through leaves not quite at their height, leaves that don't yet make the full-fledged wave sound of late summer, but are instead, to continue the analogy, more like ripples. Early summer is the time for creeks with tiny fish hopping in and out of them, for earthworms with their tiny crunching sounds, for baby animals and small plants, for delicacy.
I guess it's obvious that while I favor the warm months in general, these early ones are my favorite. I love the laze, even the oppression, of late, solid, heat, but I am exhilarated, as most living things are, by the early, tender months. And though they're glorious to gaze on, for sure (no flowers are prettier, though we had a sadly short run of daffodils, my real favorite, this year), most of all, I like at this time of year, to listen.
Labels: nature
And the concrete goose on Lyons Avenue disappeared for a full week and re-emerged this morning, wearing a gardening apron, a floral-print sunbonnet, and accompanied by a baby concrete goose wearing a matching outfit! When concrete geese go on maternity leave and return ready to garden, summer is here.
Jamie