Summer days

The lengthening shadows of the late summer day, seem to pull substance and spirit, out of the haze of New York's summer streets, like a sorcerers spell casting. Perhaps it flows like hot honey, into a simmering cauldron of syrupy alchemic absolution.
The warm winds randomly lift and disperse it again in ropey eddying waves, casting dark, gauzy veils under trees and around buildings, letting the threads go carelessly, where they settle down to roost heavily in clumped piles, on the muggy tar sidewalks.

The long, languid humid days of summer...Sticky sensuality settles over my bones like a spiderweb, and the venom of the sultry air, infuses my blood with dizzying, swirling wonder, like a child spinning in circles again and again, to see the world differently, to see the colors and shapes spiral into prisms.
The days and nights seem to take on the sharp, starkly soulful dreamscape of bright edges only to bleed and blur into smoke and dust.
It is these days and nights, scented with ripeness, fruits bursting from trees and falling on the ground in fermented piles, which stick to shoes and make one feel off kilter for a minute, until rectified, that call to me, on weighted wind.
The garbage cans are overflowing, because everyone is outside, celebrating light and warmth and liberty from school, the avenue's are busy, with people all going about their business, but as they leave their houses, they seem to walk more slowly, as they take in the wistful bright sky, and feel the sun brush their shoulders and the bridge of their noses.

Boys notice girls, girls notice boys, girls notice girls and boys notice boys, and they make eye contact then look away, or they make eye contact and hold it bravely ... and maybe even say hello... or whisper it in their minds...
Parents desperately hold gummy, sweaty little hands of evasive toddlers with ice cream, toy and pizza radar. The successful tots, have chocolate smeared faces or shirts, the less persuasive ones, just pout or whine. The truly uncooperative ones actually seem to levitate, their feet barely touching the ground as their caregivers try get their reluctant charges home. Dogs are all about, coats gleaming, their tongues lolling, but smiling all the while, with the joy of being outside for a walk.

The trees, with their sighing, heavy, curly heads, seem to turn their full, bright, green leaves towards the sun proudly, to bask in the scorching, raw countenance. They glow, with a faint aura of time passing, like Gorgeous Grandmothers' wearing all their beautiful jewelry at once, gifts given gladly to them in days gone by, in the name of truest love.

The flower gardens, perfume the air for the moment, a transitory sigh.
Like a hand opened wide, palm-up, feeding birds and beasts, flora and fauna burst in their absolute element, giving everything they can, for this festival of summertime.
Even in the city, they have been invited into tiny gardens. Their riot of color and bloom a defiant point of tiny contrary pride in a place of so much grey, brown and beige concrete.

The children play on the sidewalk close to home, periodically waiting anxiously for their balls, which have fallen into the street, to return and roll back into gutters where they can be retrieved safely. Their moms say every time "no, wait, don't get it" and the children already know the staccaco song and dance of "no" and "wait", and get down collectively on scratched up knees anyway, searching under the parked cars until they spot the ball rolling back, on their own trajectory, which it inevitably does.
Other children, scratch out dusty chalk pictures on the sidewalk or ride on small bikes or wobbly looking skates.
The adults sit on the steps, their cell phones by their side, just watching, enjoying the moments of relative city quiet. Some are itching to get back inside to their humming air conditioners and tv shows they just must catch up on. The thought of having their lovely, but vacationing children indoors for such an extended period of time though, keeps them rooted to the hardness of the sun warmed steps, until mealtime or bedtime.

These hot days, where the music is slightly plaintive and kinetically resistant, or breathy and husky like blue smoke tendrils seeping from sweet lips, are made for insight and complete illuminations.
The taste of the last insubstantial sip of beer from the very bottom of the bottle, lingers on the tongue for awhile, and thoughts and ideas, hover ever closer to the minds bright eye.
The night now, always settle on me, like a velvet swaddling cloth, hot and slurred, with a hint of breeze.

and I love these days... they have an awareness all their own. A whisper of gathering together, the ripening of the harvest, lovers finding eachother so they can hunker down for a cold winter, and this weighty sense of being in this very space, this very place...