Summer Evening

[rejectomorph]

Each day now goes down bruised by an orange blur that burns the hanging haze. The streams are sluggish, the field paths dusty and edged by brown swaths of parched grass. The nearby woods are sultry, their bramble-bordered grassy glades dry and crackling underfoot. Night arrives without the song of crickets, and the louder, buzzing insects which will make the late August air hum and vibrate have not yet arrived. July evenings are silent, the branches of the pines drooping into heavy air utterly still, the birds all gone to roost. The empty, darkly radiant street sends its heat toward the welcome stars.