The sun-dappled woods that once rang with bird-song during mating and nesting season is now a quieter place. I was a delighted witness to the fledging of the four phoebes who were raised on the front porch by their two hard-working parents. They all took flight on the same day, the last one just at dusk. It took me a while to stop checking on them through the porch window, the once busy moss-edged nest so oddly empty. For a couple days the parents kept them together in the saplings by the pond's inlet and I was so happy to see all four little ones hale and hardy.
Down below the yard, the waterfall and stream's chortling voices have likewise quieted to a more whispery conversation with the leaf-rustle of the trees, their leaves now all in Summer's deeper hues. The ponds are shimmering blue mirrors of green and sun-gold. The marvel of our invisible partnering with the trees goes on in its ancient, unceasing rhythm, they breathing out oxygen, we exhaling back to them. This gentle, sacred Dance awaits us any summer day we care to slip out-of-doors and accept the invitation.
Harvest days lie ahead with the good labor that this entails, but for these precious days, I seek this quiet pond-side seat, the tumult of the peopled-world blessedly over the far hill. I'll let that back in later...later.
