JULY
Nature offers fruits now as well as flowers.
In the midst of July heat and drought, the season is trivial as noon.
A month of haying, heat, low water, and weeds.
“The year is but a succession of days,
and I see that I could assign
some office to each day
which, summed up,
would be the
history of the year.”
Henry Thoreau, August 24, 1852
***
A late breeze rises,
wood thrush and tanager sing,
sparkling the river.
Fine silvery light
reflecting from the blades of
reflecting from the blades of
miles
of waving grass.
Wintergreen
blossom,
pretty little
chandelier,
adorns
forest floor.
Waves
of light and shade
over
the breadth of the land
sweeping
the landscape.
Shadows of pine stems
fall across the small wood path,
red with pine-needles.
June
grasses are past.
Now
the grass turns to hay as
flowers
turn to fruits.
Lilies
surprise me.
Now
the flowering season
has
reached its height.
The
moon reflected
from
the rippled surface like
a
stream of dollars.
Busy hummingbird
unmindful of the shower,
struck by a big drop.
Aboriginal
bream over its sandy nest
poised on
waving fin.
Waving
in the wind
this
grass gives a purple sheen
over
the meadow.
Long
after starlight
high-pillared
clouds of the day
reflect
downy light.
Hayers rest at noon
and resume after sunset.
The Haymaker’s moon.
A
fine misty rain
lies
on reddish tops of grass
like
morning cobwebs.
Thoughts
driven inward
by
clouds and trees reflected
in
the still, smooth water.
Dark-blue
winding stripe,
green
meadow, dark-green forest,
blue
dark and white sky.
Flying shore to shore,
yellowish devil's-needles
cross their Atlantic.
With
midsummer heats
asters
and goldenrods now,
children
of the sun.
The
more smothering,
furnace-like
heats are begun,
and
the locust days.
Darting
forked lightning,
a
muttering thunder-cloud
drives
me home again.
Sun warm on my back
I turn round and shade my face --
a beautiful life.
Our fairest days
born
in
a fog, the season of
morning
fogs arrived.
Along
the river
the
memory of roses.
Late
rose now in prime.
In
low Flint's Pond Path
goldenrod
makes a thicket
higher
than my head.
Fog rises highest
over the river and ponds
which are thus revealed.
July 25, 1852
Sun's
disk round and red
seen
well above horizon
through
thick atmosphere.
The
voice of the loon
in
the middle of the night
far
over the lake.
Goldenrod,
asters
grasshoppers
now abundant,
cooler
breezy air.
Kindred red color
of skies in the evening and
fruits in the harvest.
Grand
sound of the rain
on
the leaves of the forest
-- distant,
approaching.
At
mid-afternoon
caught
in a deluging rain
under
a maple.
.
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A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, July
See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, July Moods
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
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