June through August

A lazy, trembling guitar is heard in the background. The sound of faraway sprinkles is enriched by the song of birds. Tall, ancient trees wash you over with generous shade. Mornings blend into evenings, and you never manage to get hold of the moment when one transitions into the other.

Put it all away in a memory box, add some grains of sand and specks of dirt, and you immortalize summer. Keep the box shut tight, don’t let any air corrode the stillness of the memory. Don’t let the flawed now drink from the perfectly idealized yesterday.

That is what summer will always be, a perfect time that you caress between frost bitten hands. It is perfect in its brevity, because the fact that it ends makes it a prized possession. If it was eternal, you would never sit on a hard wooden chair and stroke it with warm fingers. Nostalgia adds some beauty; you take away the unpleasant flashes and turn them into comical anecdotes. You bathe the good scenes in a softer light that soothes the rough edges. And when you look back at summer, you grasp the beauty.

M, a beholder.