Summer's ebb, and flow

We're back to the kind of weather I associate with the state fair, warm (even hot) and humid. This may not be Summer's last hurrah, but I suspect any warm spells after this one will be more like an encore than the main performance. Meanwhile, the sumac and sugar maples continue to turn red. It's becoming more and more clear to me that nature's progress is stutter-step while our calendars have sharp cut offs that note one day it's Summer and the next it's Autumn. Many things in the real world don't fit our penchant for linear structures.

early August, fawns wearing spots

Photo by J. Harrington

The two fawns in the photo were spotted (not just seen, they were wearing spots) at the beginning of the month. When I saw them (at least I believe it was them) this past Sunday morning, spots weren't noticeable (so I saw them but didn't spot them). The fawns are still smaller than mom but all their pelage is now about the same color. It'll be awhile yet before Summer's reddish wash becomes Wintery gray, just as it's too early for frogs to start hibernating, though I've noticed a number of them crossing roads on their way to wintering grounds. Some of the migrations we watch for are largely local. In Minnesota, no season, even Winter, is permanent.

A World of Light

By John Reibetanz 

If I close my eyes now, I can still see them

canopied by the visor of my sunhat:

three children islanded on a narrow rim

of earth between the huge crack-willow that

they squat before, hushed, poised to net a frog,

and the pond the frog will jump to (it got away)

a glass its dive will shatter.

                                             The unbroken image

pleases my mind’s eye with its density,

such thick crisscross of tree-trunk, earth, and tall grass

I see no breach, no source for the light that steeps it

but a blue burning in the pond’s green glass.

The grass withered, the tree blew down, earth caught

the frog, the children grew. Sky’s ice-blue flame

teased along the wick it would consume.

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