The black elm-tops and shadows of June.

June 9

P. M. — To Corner Spring. 

Without an umbrella, thinking the weather settled at last. 

June 9, 2017

There are some large cumuli with glowing downy cheeks floating about. Now I notice where an elm is in the shadow of a cloud,—the black elm-tops and shadows of June. 

It is a dark eyelash which suggests a flashing eye beneath. It suggests houses that lie under the shade, the repose and siesta of summer noons, the thunder-cloud, bathing, and all that belongs to summer. These veils are now spread here and there over the village. 

It suggests also the creak of crickets, a June sound now fairly begun, inducing contemplation and philosophic thoughts, — the sultry hum of insects. 

A yellowbird’s nest in a poplar on Hubbard’s Bridge causeway; four fresh eggs; ten feet high, three rods beyond fence. 

Veronica scutellata (how long?) at Corner Spring. 

Compelled to squat under a bank and stand under a wood-pile through a shower. 

6.30 P. M. — Up Assabet. 

Again, about seven, the ephemera came out, in numbers as many as last night, now many of them coupled, even tripled; and the fishes leap as before.

A young robin abroad.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, June 9, 1856

Without an umbrella, thinking the weather settled at last. See June 8, 1860 ("Within a day or two has begun that season of summer when you see afternoon showers, maybe with thunder, or the threat of them, dark in the horizon, and are uncertain whether to venture far away or without an umbrella.")

Large cumuli with glowing downy cheeks floating about. See June 4, 1855 ("Great white-bosomed clouds, darker beneath, float through the cleared sky and are seen against the deliciously blue sky, such a sky as we have not had before."); June 11, 1856 ("Great cumuli are slowly drifting in the intensely blue sky, with glowing white borders”).

It suggests houses that lie under the shade, the repose and siesta of summer noons, the thunder-cloud, bathing, and all that belongs to summer. See June 6, 1855 ("You see the dark eye and shade of June."); June 8, 1850 (" When the frogs dream, and the grass waves, and the buttercups toss their heads, and the heat disposes to bathe in the ponds and streams then is summer begun"); June 8, 1859 ("Within a day or two has begun that season of summer when you see afternoon showers, maybe with thunder, or the threat of them, dark in the horizon"); June 11, 1856 ("It is very hot this afternoon, and that peculiar stillness of summer noons now reigns in the woods. "); June 16, 1860 ("It appears to me that these phenomena occur simultaneously, say June 12th :• Heat about. 85° at 2 P.M.• Hylodes cease to peep.• Purring frogs (Rana palustris) cease.• Lightning-bugs first seen.• Bullfrogs trump generally.• Mosquitoes begin to be really troublesome.• Afternoon thunder-showers almost regular.• Sleep with open window.• Turtles fairly and generally begun to lay.")

The creak of crickets, a June sound now fairly begun. See June 7, 1858 ("June shadows are moving over waving grass-fields, the crickets chirp uninterruptedly. . .The trees having leaved out, you notice their rounded tops, suggesting shade."); see also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Cricket in Spring

A yellowbird’s nest in a poplar on Hubbard’s Bridge causeway. See June 9, 1855 ("A yellowbird’s nest eight feet from ground in crotch of a very slender maple. “) See also A Book of the Seasons,: the Summer Yellowbird

Again, about seven, the ephemera came out, in numbers as many as last night, ...; and the fishes leap as before. . . . See June 8, 1856 (“my boat being by chance at the same place where it was in ’54, I noticed a great flight of ephemera”).  See also June 9, 1854 (7 p. m. — Up Assabet. . . .[T]here is an incessant sound made by the fishes leaping for their evening meal, dimpling the river like large drops as far as I can see . ..”); June 2, 1854 ("It was a great flight of ephemera"). See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Insect Hatches in Spring (millers, perla, shad-flies or ephemera)

June 9. See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, June 9

A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau

"A book, each page written in its own season,

out-of-doors, in its own locality.”

~edited, assembled and rewritten by zphx © 2009-2021