the sky was lemon creme; time evaporated

Morning at the edge of the third world. Awakened by cry of cat at open window and gentle rainshower. Cloud overcast lit from within so that sky in south and east glowed a quiet yellow. Gentle breeze: sultry. Gentle rain: a morning lullaby.

There was then more light and the rain paused. I found three cucumbers amidst a starry sky of cucumber blossom. Light rain was a good excuse to postpone going into garden with hoe for weed remediation. Still, though, have to inspect for great tobacco worms who love succulent tomato plants and can eat one halfway to ground in a single morning (almost).

Then there were more clouds. there are more clouds. There is drone of cicada. And raincrow. (This year there is more raincrow music than I can recall, ever.) Hey, do you know that "raincrow " is a yellow-billed cuckoo? (I would not have known that if it had not been part of the instruction received from Bobby Rudd and Rotchie Byars.)

Somehow, drone of cicada folds time, perhaps an energetic frequency enabling passage into timelessness. It also seems to enhance even the sound of the smallest rustlings in tall grass where milkweed infuses morning with butterfly fragrance. Light and shade, sunlight and shadow on young oaks sprouting beneath the spreading maples. Drone of cicada. Usual busy morning meeting of busy black crows, wren scolding from perch above cats food . . . suddenly the morning has become forever. And I am here. Here in this miracle of simple everyday. I hear cars passing on the road before my little cottage as if they are moving in some other reality. Green and green and green is the morning. A couple days ago, I even wrestled blade from riding mower and hammered it back nearly straight, sharpened it and mowed a month's accumulated growth of Bermuda grass. Green and green and green.

Not last night, and not the night before, but the night before that, I heard the season's first small scratchy voice of katydid. The next night there were maybe three or four. And last night when I returned from dinner at Kentucky Dam village Harbor Lights there were katydids in a small chorus prophesying eternity. The sound of night beneath maples in high summer. These katydid resonances, frogs in oldpond, coyote, and owl beneath bright moon above are evening.

Now, forever . . . evening and morning are the first day.

May there be peace in your heart and in the place where you dwell. May you be happy.