Cicada Days

 

The sun is bright and harsh in the 

Oklahoma sky. The grasses sway in the heat.

The first leaves dry and float to the ground. The cicadas thrum and throb with the heat.

The trees struggle to provide shade. Everything metal is too hot to touch.

The pecans begin to dry and their hulls brown and split. 

Dragonflies spin and swoop and rest on dry grass stems.

Children swelter until their sweet faces flush with heat.

Little girls go barefoot. Lazy dogs rest in the shade.

Children go swimming in the early morning.

We watch the apples ripen.  Spiders set up webs in broad daylight.

Butterflies flutter across the yard. Cicadas buzz and drone.

 

     Thistle blooms. The last nasturtiums fade.

The farmers line up huge rounds of hay.

The sky is stark blue.

Follow the barbed wire to fall.

The Star, the Moon, and a Father

I drove home late and the night sky was clear. It had been a long day full of activity and I was enjoying the quiet. A star low in the sky caught my attention. It seemed to move along with me through the night just as fast as my car moved. The great distance between that star and myself made it appear to glide beside me—an illusion.

It called to mind riding in the spacious back seat of the yellow and white Pontiac Dad used to drive. Coming home late at night from the lake or from Grandma’s house, we were all quiet—tired and quiet. The baby was asleep in Mama’s lap—no one talked. We were tuckered out and headed home.

I saw the moon in the summer sky seeming to skim the treetops and race through the open spaces moving along as fast as the car moved. Kent and I watched it. He was alarmed by it. It seemed too close and too huge. I watched it, big and round and butter-colored traveling along steady beside us. It never went ahead or lagged behind.

Asphalt thrummed beneath the old car with the beat and song of the road. Wind swept through the rolled down windows. The night was warm and peaceful.

The moon was like a father running beside his child’s bicycle rooting for him to make his first wobbly ride. “Keep pedaling! Watch ahead! Straight now, steady! You can do it!”

The star and that moon are like God there running beside me, encouraging me, hoping I will remember what he has taught me, guiding me forward toward the goal—his arms stretched toward me wanting me to succeed, wanting to help, but restraining himself for my sake.

Even now that I am grown as a Christian and should be able to keep things under control and drive straight and steady down any road, He is there like the silent radiant moon gliding through the sky—distant, but very close. Not ahead, not behind, but beside me.

He speaks to me gently on the wind through the night in the dark places of life and the bright—encouraging me.

Like a star, the moon, a loving father—Emmanuel—God with us.

And they shall call his name Emmanuel, which being interpreted is, God with us. Matt. 1:23 kjv

 

See the Sky

One ought, every day at least, to hear a little song, read a good poem, see a fine picture, and if it were possible, to speak a few reasonable words.

~ Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Make a New Friend

One ought, every day at least, to hear a little song, read a good poem, see a fine picture, and if it were possible, to speak a few reasonable words.

~ Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Watch the Sunset

One ought, every day at least,to hear a little song, read a good poem, see a fine picture, and if it were possible, to speak a few reasonable words.

~ Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Hold a Baby

One ought, every day at least,to hear a little song, read a good poem, see a fine picture, and if it were possible, to speak a few reasonable words.

~ Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Smell a Rose

One ought, every day at least,to hear a little song, read a good poem, see a fine picture, and if it were possible, to speak a few reasonable words.

~ Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Little House on the Prairie

Not much is left of the homestead. The house burned and the flower beds and shrubbery are now pushed aside by a bulldozer or cut to the ground by a mower. The mailbox has been left alone to mourn beside the road, so long that a pair of birds has built a nest inside.

The eggs hatched long since in the tender early spring. The babies were fed on plentiful bugs and left their nest behind as soon as the were fledged, before the harsh heat of mid-July began to overheat their metal room, the birds were gone. Grass and weeds overgrow the box and nearly hide it.

Except for the nest, the mailbox is empty. It seems to be reaching toward the passing cars. Begging, with its door flung open for a word from the living world, a letter from home, even an overdue bill, or a faded sale paper. Nothing comes. No one checks the box each day to find a birthday card, a magazine, or a seed catalog.

The rural carrier doesn't stop here any more to pickup a bundle of letters to go out, to leave an envelope of stamps or lay the metal flag back in its "no mail" position.

The property is for sale now. I stopped to walk around, to salute the family long gone, to pat the fencepost, and stand for a minute under a shade tree where a swing once entertained children on a hot summer afternoon like this one.

There is nothing sadder than a forsaken homesite, unless maybe it's an abandoned mailbox.

The Hollis Table

Since the thermometer read over 100 degrees, the picnic moved indoors. Clockwise from the left are Alton, Evan, Stewart, Jessica, Annette, Julie, Brenna, Zeke, Sarah, Jessica, Emily and Jordyn.

Clockwise from roll of duct tape are Jessica Ashley, Emily Estrada, Jordyn Hollis, Alton Hollis, Kyle McNew, Kyle Collins, Evan Boland, Stewart "McNewert," Jessica Best, and Annette Wright. Everyone was quiet and well-behaved. Right!

Ditto with Brenna Hollis up front and "????" with the duct tape. (We don't know why.) We left soon afterward, with only minor damage to the premises and a thin layer of debris to be raked up, for the Muskogee water park. We had a large time as Grandma would say!

Dog Days of Summer

The porch swing hangs heavy.

The potted plants sigh;

But none is so hot nor

So weary as I.

The music of crickets,

The buzz of the fly

Is droning unanswered

Tired and dry.

The sun on the garden

Has dried every leaf;

The vines have all withered

Gone summer's feast.

The Queen Ann has faded.

Is no longer white.

All life waits in stillness

For coolness of night.

We watch for the promise 

Of color on trees

Of pears and of pumpkins

To come with the ease,

Of cooler and wetter

Oh, welcome relief
From the dog days of summer

The satin cerise

Of summer's late sunsets, 

Those guarantee all

The geese winging southward:

God sending us fall.