Alright

July is here with its aggressive sun and its sultry evenings. I look at the white clouds piling above the mountains, and imagine their shade filling the deep canyons where cold streams run. It must have been nice there today, especially when breezes stirred the trees into music. There were no breezes here— only withering flowers and browning grass under a stillness like death.

I've never seen the jasmine blossoms turn brown so early in the summer. More than half of them must be dead already, though I've irrigated the bushes almost daily. And though the mountains have their cooling clouds, here there is only empty, pale blue sky where a hunting hawk wheels now and then. I wonder at its energy. I only laze about, waiting for the trees to hide the sun so I can go out and cool the tormented plants with streams of bright water shooting from the garden hose.

Dusk is an hour away. The automatic lawn sprinklers of the house on the corner have come on. One of them is still broken, and still shoots an arc of water several feet high. I can hear the splashing from here. It's a very welcome sound.


( Sunday Verse )