Tuesday, June 19, 2012

Lightning bugs and honeysuckle

If you're not outside at dusk these days, go there.

The lightning bugs in Jersey are ridiculous now, and the dusk honeysuckle aroma wraps around me like Granny's afghan. Light matters for the cerebral among us, but the honeysuckle takes me past language.

Granny's dead, has been for a long time, but tonight she has arisen again, as real as the shadowy outline of the hop bine crossing the slate sky a few feet away.


In a few weeks June's tumescence will turn rancid, as the sun starts to creak its way back south again, as it always has.

But tonight it is still edging north, and Puck and Peaseblossom play with us in the late shadows, Saturn rising in the eastern sky, when anything (and everything) are still possible.

Bugs that flash for love, ringed planets, impossibly delicious air, and critters who dodge my slaps to steal some blood, my blood,  so they may have some children--it's June again, and always has been.




I love June.....

2 comments:

Kate said...

There seem to be more fireflies than ever this year, and they seem early. The hot SSW wind and the 90° make it feel like South Dakota near the river in August -

except for the fireflies.

I am trying not to panic over the approach of the solstice. My garden is busily reaching toward the sun, and the petunias - planted this year because MY grandmother loved them - are spectacular.

The world is amazing. My daughters are young women now. They are stretching into their own June.

Maybe if we all sing to the sun, it will stay around a bit longer.

Jenny said...

There's a reason June is the most popular month for weddings.

My daughters have discovered the joy of fireflies this summer in a way they've never done before. I'll stay out with them much too late in the evenings just for that.

We don't have enough honeysuckle here, I think. But along the bike path there are a few spots that make me catch my breath as I pedal past because it is so sudden and strong. And wonderful.

Is June really this fabulous or are we especially sensitive to it due to our exhaustion at the end of the school year?