High Summer

HIGH SUMMER End of July The ridges, moraines, mountains and valleys, the meadows and farms of Upstate New York are a living mosaic of yellows and tans, vermilions and browns framed by the forests of deep Lincoln green which, a month beyond solstice, mark the halcyon days of the high tide of summer, when Great Lakes and Finger Lakes and lakes in between all shimmer with color and the bees in my garden all hover like helicopters brimming with cargo for constructing a base in some foreign war zone where the color of summer is a deep reddish-brown, staining the sands and the streets of their cities with bloodshed and sorrow But my good wife and I, bathed by the sunshine and glad for our lives, even in an era consistently subject to car-bombs and lies, listen to the murmur of a bountiful season, hear it humming and chanting like the gathering voices of wind-song and women singing their devotion to the whispering rhythms of sunlight and soil, their songs of thanksgiving pulsating softly, like a new baby’s heart, like the generous breezes of a new mother’s breath