Saturday in CinCity. The "Is It Hot Enough For You?" Edition.

The cicadas are back. Now we can call it summer. Although we live in the midst of a city, frequently there are moments when sitting on the porch we hear only the sounds of birds or wind and, lately, the rise and the falling chorus of cicadas. That is summer.

Our home is cooled off only in certain rooms, so the majority of the house is hot, and baking, now that its brick exterior is holding in the heat. Chores get done little by little or not at all. HoneyHaired and I are both slowly gearing up for school to begin. She still has summer reading and is still plowing through Crime and Punishment. I am a bit farther behind and simply trying to plug in my school ID in order to recieve all the graduate school email and instructions waiting to be seen. I can't even get past USER NAME. This could easily take all weekend.

Hubby's at work. HoneyHaired will go in for a few hours at the hardware store. CollegeGrrrl tells us she's coming home tomorrow for her birthday. And I'm having lunch today with a high-school friend, a best friend. Somehow we drifted apart towards the end of school and after graduation for no good reason, other than the strength of the currents that steer you away from home and into your future. That time is so rapid, you can't realize how far it carries you and for how long.

We walked up to the movie theater yesterday afternoon to see Winter's Bones. Good movie. Not for the faint of heart, but a really good movie. We were still talking about it this morning.

I see it's clouded up for a bit this morning. I'd best walk this dog sitting in front of me before it gets much hotter.



The Heron

by Wendell Berry

While the summer's growth kept me
anxious in planted rows, I forgot the river
where it flowed, faithful to its way,
beneath the slope where my household
has taken its laborious stand.
I could not reach it even in dreams.
But one morning at the summer’s end
I remember it again, as though its being
lifts into mind in undeniable flood,
and I carry my boat down through the fog,
over the rocks, and set out.
I go easy and silent, and the warblers
appear among the leaves of the willows,
their flight like gold thread
quick in the live tapestry of the leaves.
And I go on until I see crouched
on a dead branch sticking out of the water
a heron—so still that I believe
he is a bit of drift hung dead above the water.
And then I see the articulation of a feather
and living eye, a brilliance I receive
beyond my power to make, as he
receives in his great patience
the river's providence. And then I see
that I am seen. Still, as I keep,
I might be a tree for all the fear he shows.
Suddenly I know I have passed across
to a shore where I do not live.