Ode to August

In summer, the song sings itself.
-William Carlos Williams

It is amazing, these days. So long and beautiful are mid-summer days. August is one of my most favorite months of summer. All of them have their own particular ambiance but August seems the month summer becomes quintessentially summer.

June feels so green and is still perfumed by the urgency of spring, “the force that through the green fuse drives the flower,” Dylan Thomas would say. Furious growth, plants mean business in June, growing so quickly you would swear you could hear them crashing upwards.

July the frenzy mellows and you see the first signs of what the buzz has been about. The heat slows the growth deepening the moments. July is almost holding its breath.

But it is August that is nature’s exhale, translated as a contented sigh. August is a banquet, easy and effortless. Time slows and yet everything is happening. In August, to paraphrase William Carlos Williams, summer is the song itself.