Delicate Summer

At our house, summer is well and truly here.

When walking outside during the day, I sometimes get overwhelmed with a feeling of sheer heaviness. The air is heavy with relentlessly increasing heat, leaves are wilting, my hair sticks to my neck and my shirt weighs down my shoulders. I feel the weight of the heat on my back. I feel the weight of the heat on my spirit.

I walk to the shady side of the yard and immediately feel a relief as I pass under the trees. The flowers in the garden remain under the hot hot sun, but they seem to glow with an amazing and delicate beauty. They look like the very epitome of freshness as they face the sky and happily soak up the sun. Nothing heavy about it.

Stepping out from the protection of the trees, I feel the sun instantly hit me, heavy on my skin, glaring in my eyes. I make myself move through the dense air to where the shade garden welcomes me. Through the gate and under the pergola, the sky looks lighter, bluer. I hear the birds singing and the fountain splashing, and as I take in the beauty of the flower beds in the indirect glow of the day, I am struck by the delicate designs, peacefully coming into bloom.

Summer Sun
Robert Louis Stevenson (1885)

Great is the sun, and wide he goes
Through empty heaven with repose;
And in the blue and glowing days
More thick than rain he showers his rays.

Though closer still the blinds we pull
To keep the shady parlour cool,
Yet he will find a chink or two
To slip his golden fingers through.

The dusty attic spider-clad
He, through the keyhole, maketh glad;
And through the broken edge of tiles
Into the laddered hay-loft smiles.

Meantime his golden face around
He bares to all the garden ground,
And sheds a warm and glittering look
Among the ivy’s inmost nook.

Above the hills, along the blue,
Round the bright air with footing true,
To please the child, to paint the rose,
The gardener of the World, he goes.