It is still summer-- at least, by calendar reckoning. August has not quite yet run her course, and Autumn does not officially come until September has nearly gone as well. It is summer by the calendar for nearly another month.
It is still summer according to the thermometer. The mercury marks day time temperatures that still run a bit too warm for my blood. We look to be in for more of the same for some weeks yet.
But neither calendar nor thermometer account for the sweet, slight-edged winds that give lie to the still-lingering heat; nor to the bright, deep-night chill that sets the stars blazing, and makes sleep come easily; nor again, that the northern tracking of the sun has dulled the fierceness of its insistent light. They do not mark the silence of the Marsh, now that the Redwings are gone, and only the Brewer's blackbirds remain, starting up in sudden, dense clouds, to wheel the open places, and dodge like stunt pilots through the rocking pines. We are on the cusp of migration season. Harriers are in the fields now, flying low and bright over willows and meadow grass. Nighthawks have visited us, with their swallow-quick, silent flight-- incongruous in so raptor-like a form. The geese are suddenly active, their voices no longer merely honking complaints. There is an ineffably wistful wildness to their calls, as they muster and V-mark the sky with their wing-loud squadrons. There is a half-hidden yellow in the heart of the aspens, in the neighbourhood rowans, in the willows and alder trees. There is a smell like baking bread, coming up off the meadows, a smell like wine in the wild rose thickets.
The days are still hot enough, no denying that. It is still beach weather, for those that like that sort of thing. Still the season of picnics and barbecues. It is advisable to keep the fan at the ready, and to leave windows opened wide to the welcome night air. The pines have not started dropping their needles, in that bright, copper rain of true Autumn. There are no whirligigging pine nuts, no sudden storm of aspen leaves in the vagrant wind. It is still summer.
But the gripping heat has gone. The sun no longer shines with near-blinding intensity. The sky has lost its fired-enamel brilliance, and taken to it an all together gentler luminosity. The air is stirring, and wild, sweet smells keep slipping out of hidden places. We are at the in-between time, and I stand on the edge of it, newly in love with the beauty of the world, with the first, mad stirrings of wanderlust, beating against my heart.
