Cooling

[rejectomorph]

Night brings damp, and hours on end when clouds obscure the stars. The orchard's sprinklers snap awake, chatter for a while, feed the breeze fine mist, then fall silent. A small flock of late migrating geese disturb midnight with brazen honks. Later, the quiet is shattered again when a single cone falls from a nearby pine, brushing through needles and bouncing from branches until it hits the pavement with a loud crack. There are a few frogs croaking again, but only intermittently. Some steps, perhaps of a deer, sound faintly in the road, but the darkness is too deep for my vision. Once more, the night reveals itself to my ears and nose alone, the scent pine and damp earth of such power that I can imagine taking root as I stand, concealing myself in thick bark, my head rising to view the land about, my toes gripping deep rock. But I do not become a tree. I let the night brush my skin with its cool softness, storing a memory on which to call when summer brings a fever needing relief.