Midsummer awes us with its richness

After winter, the grass greens, the air gentles. By summer, rain must rescue the dry ground. At midsummer, field flowers stand tall and the earth rests.

Climbing the high hills across this state, peace, small prosperities, and plenty are at large.

Old houses retreat beneath wide oaks, tucking their porches further into the shade. Cows convene at the creek beneath alder and willow. Little boys fish further down. And pinching their noses, jump in the deep end over and over again.

Ripe tomatoes, corn, fresh beets, earth clinging, radishes big as a pullet's egg spill from worn market baskets. In town, the carnival's come; children clutch coins, clustering about the bright trucks while music spills on the ground.

Heavy-headed, brown, gold, deep minty green field grasses sway. Mown fields stretch gold, green, or soft purple. Cut hay gives a pungent scent, so do manured fields. Cows silhouetted against the sun, graze the hill; horses crop in pairs, end to end, swishing their tails for each other, scattering the stinging horse flies.

Old barns sag, hay carts rattle. Evidence of summer's sudden furies — split and downed trees – lie on the ground. Leaves rustle and chatter, herons rise from the swale, hawks glide, turkey vultures cruise with slanted wings. Mile over mile of full silence, broken sometimes by a crow's anxious call, traffic's dull hum, a creek running over and between stones.

In the state parks families gather: hiking, camping, cooking, sleeping outdoors. Wet suits and damp towels sag on dipping lines behind tents and cabins. Bacon crackles, coffee boils. Water trickles, then rushes down gorges; the paths are slippery with mist and wet stones. Children shout on the swings and slides. More little boys jump into the water, over and over, and over once more.

Shooting stars track down the night sky. Far overhead, satellites thread their way across the Earth’s dome. Fireflies flash. Bats follow the night until morning.

This is the season of pause and repletion. Time caught unaware, nettles and daisies in her hair.