TheBanyanTree: Midsummer Night Wishes

[B Drummond]

It is one beautiful midsummer night.  A waxing orange crescent hangs low 
on the horizon big enough that you can see details of craters and 
mountains in shadows on its surface.

And in the big dome overhead a million stars in points of light - some 
shimmering, some bright, some faint - are stirred into a creamy swath.  
In the leyland cypress trees fireflies flit among the branches,  not 
venturing now into open fields as they did earlier this year.  Their 
neon torsos flash, "I'm over here. Come check ME out!"  Why, I wonder, 
are they staying in the cypress?   Are they trapped?  Are they lost?  
Performing an ancient ritual? Maybe they're trapped in the confines of 
the branches and don't know the way out.   I don't know. But I want to 
know.

Katydids and crickets saw tunes on fiddle legs and night things rustle 
by my ears.  They light on me, crawling on my head, neck, shoulders and 
ears.  The night and everything in it is a constant movement.  I want 
to pause it like a freeze frame on a DVD.  I want to stop it and 
stretch it out until I am through with it. 

Mown grass, honeysuckle, jasmine, mimosa, coneflower, magnolia, rose, 
fig and a hundred other fragrances drift in the night air.  A  slight 
breeze stirs blooms on the butterfly bush, bringing new scents with it 
and dislodging the moths greedily feeding on the blooms. There's a 
chill and the hairs on my arms react in response to the air moving over 
them with little swaying dances above pools of perspiration; 
perspiration that trickles down my face in a saline solution that I 
taste when licking my lips, that leaves my shirt sopping, clinging to 
my back.

In the east rises a large star above the pines and poplars,  clearly the 
brightest thing above me tonight; a pulsing diamond mirror radiating 
white light in sharp lines with points that shimmer and twist in a 
strange, constantly varying pattern.

In the west the moon dips below the black sawteeth that are trees on the 
horizon.  The whole of the creamy swath has moved.  West it all wants 
to go, west without fail.  I want to pause it like a freeze frame on a 
DVD movie.  I want to stop it and stretch it out until I am through 
with it.  I want to stay a part forever of all that moves in me and 
around me in a beautiful, endless midsummer night.  


  bd
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