I am sitting on our front porch enjoying the quiet of a late August Sunday morning. I just returned from getting our Sunday papers and stopped here to enjoy the hush I interrupted with uneven steps and the staccato thudding of my cane.
A lone single-engine airplane toils somewhere above me, and birds call out at random on a scale ranging from near croak to full song. Hummingbirds click their beaks and hum with their wings as they chase each other from our feeders. Doves coo somewhere down the lane to tell their mate about the luck they’re having in the always solitary work of survival; their calls echo across the lonely distances between them like land-inflected whalesong.
These few sounds are embroidery on the morning’s hush. Without them, summer would stand naked in the spotlight of Act One with only a soliloquy to give it cover. Prudence demands that summer be at least minimally clothed in the morning hours of a hot day. It is allowed run around naked only in Act Three – only at day’s end when the heat is unbearable and nudity is to be expected.
A soft breeze just whispered something to me about elsewhere. Breezes speak only in hints, preferring to utter generalities and leave specifics to the imagination of the listener. This breeze gave off a faint aroma of travel and foreign intrigue, but I am much too content here on my porch to give its whisperings any credence.
