Picture of A Summer Evening

Thunder grumbles in the distance like a giant restless river. The air and clouds hang heavy with the promise of rain, but rain doesn't come. The scorched, thirsty ground remains dry.

--

The bird's sound is not like any kind of music that I know, but rings clear in trills and rounded notes, smooth and loud and lilting. I wonder at the rippling sound bursting from the bird's throat, surely shaped so differently from my own. It is not so much a song--(if some wild melody is promised, it fades too quickly, only completed, perhaps, in the human mind)--but what else can we call it?

--

Sunset glows warm through the thinning cloud-veil;
gentle colors gather in the west, saying
farewell to the day.
No ray of light can needle through the heavy air
and brush across the leaves to set them ablaze--
the evening trees of green and gold
are only green tonight.

--

I saw a firefly. Couldn't tell if he was green or yellow, but the light was very bright. He blinked with his whole body, and fifteen others followed him at once.

--

It's dark now, so the windows become mirrors, and I can only see outside through my own reflection. My body is too narrow to watch the whole night wrap its arms around the house, but the night doesn't mind. I think the bird sleeps with the sun, both of them silent as the crickets take up the song of summer, and the moon thrusts its silver light against the other side of the inky clouds, hoping that a sliver will peek through. Perhaps, here and there, it does.

It's still dark.

Thunder grumbles again, and again the ground and I will hold our breaths for rain. It is only a promise. Perhaps it will come when I, too, lie down and sleep.

Two fireflies are left blinking above the grass. They surge up, up, higher and higher, their light twinkling in bright streaks behind them.

They are my stars against the murky sky.