Tag: August

Tarnished

barnstormingblogLeave a comment

thistlegrass2

In a patch of baked earth
At the crumbled cliff’s brink,
Where the parching of August
Has cracked a long chink,

Against the blue void
Of still sea and sky
Stands single a thistle,
Tall, tarnished, and dry.

Frayed leaves, spotted brown,
Head hoary and torn,
Was ever a weed
Upon earth so forlorn,

So solemnly gazed on
By the sun in his sheen
That prints in long shadow
Its raggedness lean?

From the sky comes no laughter,
From earth not a moan.
Erect stands the thistle,
Its seeds abroad blown.
~Robert Laurence Binyon –“The Thistle”

At the Top of the Ferris Wheel

barnstormingblog2 Comments
photo of the Seattle Great Wheel by Anthony May Photography

“The first week of August hangs at the very top of summer, the top of the live-long year, like the highest seat of a Ferris wheel when it pauses in its turning. The weeks that come before are only a climb from balmy spring, and those that follow a drop to the chill of autumn, but the first week of August is motionless, and hot. It is curiously silent, too, with blank white dawns and glaring noons, and sunsets smeared with too much color.”
― Natalie Babbitt from Tuck Everlasting 

Our summer finally hit this week with temperatures topping 90 degrees.  The rest of the country has been suffering in heat and drought for two months while we in the northwest wondered where summer was hiding itself.

So here I sit silent and sweating in the highest seat of the Ferris Wheel this week, appreciative of the brief pause, enjoying the view of what is behind, alongside and in front, looking down all around me.  Too soon will be the descent into autumn coming, arriving just over the top, my stomach leaping into my chest with the lurch forward into the unknown.  As the climb took so long, I am never quite ready for this inevitable drop back into the chill.

Best to celebrate this first week in August, finally having arrived at the very top of the year.  I’m swinging in the breeze,  capturing the moment forever.