“What wondrous life is this I lead!
Ripe apples drop about my head;
The luscious clusters of the vine
Upon my mouth do crush their wine…” ~ Andrew Marvell
I will remember this August….despite the solemn start we’ve finished in luscious, lovely light, deep and colourful in minds eye.
Such heady fragrance’s pulls me in, the scent of late summer grass, ripe berries burgeoning on the vine, crisp apples hanging low..tantalizing like Eve did Adam… the smell of summer late and low in my nostrils most welcome.
What other season can one become one with thistles,goldenrod and butterfly… sit lone in sun,baked hot upon golden skin glowing deeply in the low summer light? That breathless time before the fall, when long shadows herald the long, slow arc of the sun in our northern horizon.
These late days of summer, lush and ripe with bounty for all, when mornings dew and fog hug beaches intimately bare, rivers silent slung and bays in solitude… when the apples hang as full and nourishing as mother milk…just beyond reach.
These late hot days of summer, when thistles beckon like down alight, soft and sensuous…rub them upon your skin,blow softly into the air, no one knows where…have you seen the beauty most unseen?
Imagine waves of grass, undulating to and fro, not unlike a belly dancer enticing you to enter forbidden venues….hot and dry, the teasing breeze beckons and calls inside your skin, fast and slow…
Do you feel this call, these sirens of summer song, long shadows , soft shade, full of long idle hours creeping…. oh so slowly creeping.. towards the harkening of the night?Stars low and sparkling bright?
I do.
Westcoast Views with Laila Yuile 
These days do feel like a reward. Fleeting. This year we have been given few such days as the arrival of summer came almost when it is leaving.
But this feeling is just not wound in reality. I have been overburdened with berries this year. So many rasps, currents, blueberries and strawberries that I haven’t had time to worry about much else. After these, figs and apples. When it rains it pours.
I always try and drink this in declaring to myself that I will recall this feeling in the darkest days of winter. But it never seems to work as those dark days overpower me every time. I guess that is what makes them so precious.
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Thinking somewhat similarly, the latest post at Staring Out…also went for a boat ride on the salt chuck with good friends in glorious sunshine, but somehow we got to talking of the state of affairs until there was almost a tact simultaneous agreement not to ruin a dandy excursion. Your photos put me in mind of a sunny afternoon in the Blackwater River Valley in 1993 shared with wife and stepson, apples all around, wasps, horses grazing, sort of the last gasp of summer. These are things I treasure, thanks for evoking them.
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That would be a “tacet” agreement…
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Played with the kids, took them for a little red wagon ride.
We then covered the driveway in sidewalk chalk and my grumpy neighbour hates that we do the front walk, so we tagged it as well. he he he
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Lol. No actually it is , Tacit.
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beautiful in image and writings!
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Unintentional, as it was, this is a most appropriate bit of writing to publish a couple of days before Jack Layton died. We do not all survive to enjoy the September of our lives. Better enjoy every day of August.
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