Saturday, August 4th, 2012

The moon is at her full, and riding high,

Floods the calm fields with light.

The airs that hover in the summer sky

Are all asleep to-night.

William C. Bryant

Two full moons in August this year,

the second on the 31st, so it will carry its brilliance on into September.

Summer has finally come to us.....

five days of sunshine forecast and it seems like a visitor

on an extended stay, she has been so shy about showing her face

from behind a screen of raindrops...

we will have to get used to her warm, lazy August days.

Mornings are lovely.

Fresh and cool - the small birds delight in bathing

and fluttering, and keeping us entertained  as we all breakfast together

with just the wide window between us.

And Callie, watching carefully,

her tail swinging slowly, from side to side

Until she catches sight of the grey and white cat

strolling nonchalantly on the far side of the picket fence,

turning in at the gate, and, not even deigning to notice

the cat in the window,

continuing on her way through the neighbour's yard

where the apricots grow heavy on burdened branches.

In the afternoons we read, or nap...

I have The Shoreline of Knowledge - essays by Chris Arthur

to read one essay at a time, and then to ponder.

The roses are coming into their second bloom, but they whisper

their preference for the cooler days of June.

".......fragrant, delicate petals open fully and are ready

to fall, with regret or disillusion, after only a day in the sun.

It is so every summer.  One can almost

hear their pink, fragrant murmur as they settle down

upon the grass:

"Summer, summer, it will always be summer."

Rachel Peden