Summer Progressions

As spring emerges out of winter, the world explodes into action. It seems that in a mere two weeks everything changes from a stark, latent state to a light green whirl of motion, of growth, of change. In the spring Nature has no time to doddle, the word is Now, Now, Now!

Life is so busy, and you hardly notice that as the days get longer, the world starts to settle into somehow, to become slowly satisfied with itself. The birds sing early in the morning, you count new songs every day, but the familiar pattern of Summer is forming itself.

Then, surprise!, it is Summer Solstice. Change itself changes to pattern, to familiarity. As July begins, morning warblers are changing to the continuous announcement of the red-eyed vireo and the wonderful song of the wood thrush. Spring peepers give way to crickets.

Summer days and nights feel long and balmy, and change seems absent, too lazy itself to make an appearance. It is with some sorrow that I see the bright magenta flowers of the vetch and wild peas - they remind me of fall, and I am not yet ready. But I still relax at night to the sound of the crickets. Quiet world, quiet nights. Even our hooded warbler is taking a rest for its incessant, urgent calling.

Now we sit near the end of July. Or rather the beginning of the end. The bird song has changed from the search for mates to that of insistent fledgling birds of all types, clamoring "feed ME! ME! ME!". No peepers, but now croaks from distant frogs.

For the first time this year, I hear the first tentative, occasional call of the first kay-dee-did. In several weeks, we will have so many of these that we will need to close the windows at night to sleep. Yes, that time will come soon, and with it August.

Summer changes still, but slowly, in ways measured in weeks. Summer rest.