mid-day on a Sunday in July

I’m waiting for the sun to move from its most intense spot in the sky. There is work to be done in the garden. The letter to California that is being composed from The New York Times is carefully resting in pages all over my office. It is waiting for me to affix its pieces. But I’m not feeling much of anything is permanent at the moment so resist. The Queen Anne’s lace that we picked last weekend has begun dropping small dried petals on my desk. The pungent green walnut, from that same walk, has lost the most intense of its odor and has begun to get small brown spots. I wish it were possible to bottle that first odor of the walnut. I wish it were possible to bottle the whole experience. A walk here on a Sunday afternoon in July Ohio. Down the hill, past the cistern with the fish and the frog looking over its many eggs and bees drinking from the small overflow. Bees drinking, ain’t that a kick? Stepping from the sun into the dappled light through the trees to the field. Some of the wild flowers are tall - reach over our heads in spots. {I don’t know what it is exactly that tells me these plants know the descent has begun. The loss of daylight has become almost palpable.} The path winds through the field, skirting the tree line turning turning past the inadequately explained hill. A small newly dead animal was lying near the corn field. {No blood, no external wounds and I wonder if the red-tailed hawk dropped it. He’s been sitting in that big nut tree and hunting our yard.} Butterflies on the path work their way from flower to flower to rotting waste. They linger. Progress slows and thankfully so does time. It is impossible to resist touching the yarrow and turning face first into the sun. The heat and the humidity somehow make the body buoyant. Back into dappled light down to the oxbow. The dragonflies are thickest here. Shimmering with impossibly delicate wings. There it is. A bright green inviting walnut. The perfect size to hold in the palm with the fingers wrapped around it just so. First instinct is to inhale. It feels like it smells good. Get it? You can feel that smell in your hand. The first breath of the pungent emanation reaches deep into the body. It makes the heart pause in salute to this intensely alive object. All you can do is walk swiftly back up the hill with it held to your face, gratefully ushering in the living breath.