The coming of Summer

When the time comes, regardless of date, Fall is frozen out and becomes Winter. Spring on the other hand gets burned out to become Summer. And so it has. Temperatures in the eighties over the weekend and pushing towards the nineties tomorrow does something to the world. A burst of hard sun makes all the gentle niceties of Spring clear out and toughen up. The bugs are released from some secret nefarious bunker of God. The cute crinkles of nascent leaves unfurl and sprawl like we're in an age of dinosaurs. And no more the gentle wafting of the scent of blossoms, rather the air is heavy with the smell of flowers and the gutters run with heaps of bruised and swollen petals. Hot storms come streaming in. Lightning cracks and the playful squirrels start interspersing swear words into their vocabulary. Rabbit sweat. Ducks wrestle in the vast hard grass that has alarmingly grown a shade too green. The gentle and profuse dandelions throw off their innocence and initiate their secret plan to poison all their neighbors. Look at them now, ringed in death! Great flocks of birds heading north for the Summer like locusts devour what they can and continue on, figuring surely they have not come far enough. Pine trees sag and weep acid before bursting into flames, songbirds fleeing them and throwing themselves into drying patches of mud, panting. We, who thought we could spend all our free time in our new, posh, patio setup, watch ants trudging over our tabletop and say "Maybe we'll just go inside for a bit." And we do, leaving the drapes closed, the house dark, and sipping cold water as we listen to jets roaring overhead to other places.


I thought it was all horrible, but writing you I suddenly understood. No, it's all fantastic.