Deep Summer and the Footsteps of Fall

  

  We have just arrived home from our family vacation, and I have not yet regaled you with my trip west with my son and daughter-in-law in August. Oh my, it's been so long since we've sat down to chat! So I am republishing this old post from August 21st, 2014 to give me some time to collect my thoughts. I am definitely feeling the shift from summer to fall today!     

 

 Summer is a beautiful young woman- radiant, tempestuous. She has come to the height of her season, cheeks flushed like the apples on the trees, skin dewy as fresh peaches, hair golden as newly cut hay,  lips cordialed with the juice of grapes. Deep Summer is one last riotous fling of growing and ripening of fruits before the final harvest of Fall and the resting time of Winter. 

    I can tell Summer's grip is lessening as I walk the dirt roads. The vibrant summer greens of grass and leaf tinge slowly the colors of sunset. Poison ivy and sumac are the first to surrender, the poison ivy on its way to becoming a curtain of flame that has tempted unknowing friends to desire a bouquet. The sumac begins to flush at leaf tips while the summery plumes that sway overhead are dried and darkened to the color of old blood. Poke bushes, once green and lush look as though the juice of their berries has seeped back within them, staining the stems a vivid ruby. Wild possum grapes dangle, covered in the dust of summer heat waves, reminding me of Aesop's fox looking longingly up at a ripening cluster.

 
    Passion vines choose now to tangle and flower and fruit, the green fruiting orbs feeling strangely hollow, yet filled with pucker-inducing flesh-covered seeds. As a child I thought the name came from the fact that the frilled lavender flowers look like the very declaration of love, one no florist can match, but I was wrong. The name tells a story for those who want to look more closely. The delicate fringe is supposed to remind of the crown of thorns that Christ wore, while the 3 stigmata in the very center are the three nails. Beneath are the 5 anthers that represent the wounds He suffered- 4 by nails and one by spear. The 10 petals are to show the faithful apostles- excluding the traitor Judas and Peter who denied the Lord at the time leading to his crucifixion. There are other symbols, but these alone are intriguing to think on.

     Most all roadside flowers have drifted to one single color. After a season of glorious variety in form and shade it seems Lady Summer has exhausted her arsenal and chose as her final statement the color of her life-giving love, the sun. In the goldenrod and every type and size of daisy, gold shines from every dusty bower.

     The gourds are making in the garden. I haven't bought seed in more than a decade. I keep the gourds till they dry to brittle parchment and then save them to crush over the earth at the end of the garden. Each is a surprise, even to itself. Crossing and recrossing as my honey bees pollinate and vines entwine in lover's snarls. Every year they look the same and different, and sometimes like none I have seen. It's like picking nature's Easter eggs, hiding under leaves and swathes of grass. Two of my favorite things to have in the vegetable garden aren't even edible: zinnias and gourds. Both thrive in the heat and drought of deep summer, happy, hearty plants that serve no purpose other than to make me deliriously happy.

     Final fruits coming to bear: crabapples, wild plums, possum grapes....Soon days will cool and change, as slowly and unnoticeablely as a child growing. With this change Summer's radiant youth will turn into the full-limbed woman of Fall, sturdy with the fullfillment of all growing things, her laugh a merry chuckle of wind through falling leaves, arms full of the earth's bounty to be stored away while her strength lasts.
     I can hear Fall's footstep just over the hills, can you?

                                                            Summer, by Alphonse Mucha

"Deep summer is when laziness finds respectability." Sam Kech