A Deep River Year - 2017

I can hear them fill the afternoon's quiet: the rhythmic drone of the cicadas rising and falling, rising and falling This is nature's musical prelude to the change of seasons here in New England as summer dwindles toward its sweet end. And there are things we practice as August comes and goes. Yesterday afternoon we made refrigerator pickles out of the bounty of cucumbers picked from our garden. Tomatoes, too, are ripening. What can be better for breakfast than fresh sliced tomato sandwiches, slathered with mayonaisse on white bread? At the border of the garden, hummingbirds hover around spires of cardinal flowers, and great sunflowers nod on tall stalks as honeybees gather golden pollen on their legs. These creatures cannot parse the future with analytical brains like ours, but they nonetheless are getting ready for the slim, cold days to come. It is an instinct buried deep in their genes, as if they, too, can hear the song of the cicadas as a sign of summer's ending.

Tonight marks the return of the great Perseid meteor shower, as Earth passes through the tail of Comet Swift-Tuttle. This cosmic rendezvous happens every August, and it marks a regular cycle in earth's journey--and ours as well. If the sky is clear, we will throw a quilt on the wet grass in our back yard and lie on our backs, gazing at the sky. For a moment we will feel the heft of the world beneath us and marvel at the tiny sparkle of the distant stars. Everything we know, everything we love, is held on this precious planet, which is home. It seems so immense, so real, so central to our whole universe. Then, suddenly, a silver streak will autograph the darkness, a light so surprising, so elegant, that we will gasp, or laugh, or hold hands tighter. It is a celestial interruption, a reminder that we are riding as passengers on a tiny voyager in space that is always carrying us to new seasons, new adventures, new surprises.

Perseids

Carrying golden pouches of treasure,
the bee pauses in the sunlight,
rests before taking flight
toward an unseen home.
The earth turns, plows through
the vast darkness of space
taking life from that same star
which is life to bees and flowers
and me.
It is all miracle on miracle
that we are here at all,
that there are rivers flowing silver
with water,
that peaches are sweet,
that we see red and gold,
and blue in roadside chicory,
that we know love,
holding hands in the wet grass
as shooting stars decorate the night
and cicadas sing a sweet song
for all that passes.

--Timothy Haut