Mid Summer Still

It is mid-summer and already the ground is scattered with leaves. Each time I walk the path around the pond I count more of them. At first there was one lonely fallen yellow leaf, then a red one. I have stopped counting now. This year spring stretched on and on, it took forever for summer to begin, now fall is already more than a whisper. We are living in a new time, a time that has its own sense of measure, not like anything I have known before.

This year there is no rush for school supplies or new clothes, anticipation is replaced with worry and doubt. Should schools open or go virtual or do some combination of the above? If they open should I send my children. If they go virtual how will we manage?

It is hard to wake from habit into necessity, especially when necessity keeps changing.

Trust and justice were directional stars in the before, however slowly we moved towards them.. Now it seems they have become obscured. Our systems are not working, our ballast is gone. We slip, we slide, some of us go overboard.

But still there are weeks of summer left. The light stretches until almost 9 and wakes me just past 6:00. The days are long, hot and humid, quickened with storms. Sometimes in the midst of all of this there are days so clear and perfect. Childhood days of endless blue sky. The trees shimmer full and deep with green, the pond lies still enough to reflect the dragonflies that guard their domain.