Drifting Through

     Summer.  The days are warm and the twilight hours are to peak length as the long spindly streaks of dying daylight cling to the mountain tops and clouds casting greeting to the awakening fireflies.  The river is running lower than in spring exposing it's muddy banks and gnarled root systems of the trees that shade afternoon swimmers and water life alike.  The sound of drumming air conditioners and lawnmowers well past prime barely spitting and sputtering clunky convenience echo in the distance as the booming rumbles of an approaching thunderstorm inspire thoughts of relief from the drenching heat.  Picnics come and picnics go just as hastily as the holidays that inspired them.  Birds sing and children dream.  Small talk is made as gardens are tended creating mouth watering hallucinations of fresh leafy salads topped with plump,  juicy tomatoes.  Fields that once nurtured tiny insignificant sprouts seem now to grow taller with every disappearing second creating a vastness of green spread out like oceans across a rippling land.  Soon, every mile of roadway will contain at least one hand painted sign indicated that the golden snap of local corn is here at last.  Summer. 

 

     And so it rolls on.  The ceaseless parade of time.  Marching through the hazy days as I sit on the top of the float.  A float so carefully adorned with decorative crape paper and buntings that look stunningly vibrant and inviting when viewed from afar but transform into a cage when entered and occupied.  Sitting.  Endlessly enthralled by the onlookers and knowing that they have no interest in this parade at all.  A parade that once you pay attention, traps you.  Wraps you in what once seemed like innocent colorful tissue paper but now feels as cold as iron once it touches you.  Once you feel it.  Once inside, the outside world is something to be watched, not lived.  Something to watch slip by slowly as you feel the dark of night growing longer and the chill in the breeze growing stronger.  Almost reminding that each day you pay attention, is another lost to a pointless struggle to escape.


 And each breeze that reaches you, brings with it the knowledge that life is fleeting and even more so when we tighten the bars of time around ourselves and give into the temptation to join the parade.