Thursday, August 02, 2012

The long hot summer vol. four: the velvet of the morning

The last in the series.
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Call it the prelude to dawn.

The fecund air pushes through the open window, heavy with the scent of things alive and fighting to stay that way.

You blink awake, pulling your mind back from the tangled dreams, which are already fading but have left you sweaty and disconcerted. You and lay back on the cool sheets. The ceiling fan rotates above you, a benefactor. With one hand on your solar plexus and the other forearm perpendicular to your supine body like an antenna in search of a secret signal, you watch the dark leaves dance against the changing sky. Deep blue gives way slowly, changing into velvet that lightens one degree at a time. If you're very lucky, a pink or orange slash will bloom.

You breathe.

Sounds follow the sky's lead. The crickets carry the chorus as they always do, but at this hour, their sound moves from the background and defines the world with its even hum. The birds begin to stir. One chirp comes, then another and another until a warbler joins in. Singing and trills round out the symphony.

Just before the sun breaks over the horizon, the breeze tacks. It veers in your window and brushes over your skin. If you've dozed off a bit and are balancing on the thin plenum that separates asleep from awake, you might think it was a lover's caress.

You'd be right.

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7 comments:

Vince said...

Yes, the sunrise is lovely. Having a dog and there being Swallows nesting in my shed I see it most mornings.

Plenum is it. I just as soon you kept your thin or thick plenums to yourself, thank you very much. :-D

Anonymous said...

Poem-a-tree

MR

WV: "coulOf"...cool off?
Can't make this up...

Michael Lawless said...

How can The Long Hot Summer end before the long hot summer ends?

Erin O'Brien said...

I had to end it before I croaked and looking at the forecast, I'm not sure which will come first.

Joe said...

very nice.

I have become a morning person over the years.

I finished reading the post, mumbled a heartfelt and jealous " I wish I had written that".

Erin O'Brien said...

I always joke about not having AC, but there are beautiful subtleties in a long hot summer when you actually live in the weather.

Rainstorms, a gentle breeze, these simple things become sparkling little gifts that are hard to appreciate when you live in an air conditioned box.

Erin O'Brien said...

And thanks for the kind words, Joe.