Summer's Silhouette

On this night, the night Summerset has ended––the tents folded up, the wares placed back in their careful packaging and the crowds dispersed––Summer really does seem to have gone. It rained for two days straight, clearing up yesterday, enough to appease the crowds and vendors, but turned cold again for much of today. Duncan and I have avoided the park; it's too much to see the litter everywhere, our precious fields reduced to parking lots and lanes. But this afternoon, as they were tearing things down, we wandered across the street if only to visit the Colorado Democrats booth and see if perhaps they had some Obama signs left over. They were quite happy to report that they had none, that, in fact, there wasn't a single sign to be had in the entire state. More should arrive on Tuesday at a town hall meeting so hopefully I'll be able to grab one. Afterward we wandered the park, Duncan's eyes and nose aimed at the ground where he sniffed for remnants of corn dogs, turkey legs and funnel cake. The sky seemed far away as an enormous hawk cut across it, riding the air from the golf course to the park and back again, its wings spread out, hardly moving, its eyes seeing more in the end of the summer than my fellow groundlings. My eyes, though, were trained on the trees, especially the elms, which almost look like they had not even experienced the green of summer. Their leaves have withered already and the branches, which only a few weeks ago were dense and heavy, are now bony and bare. Most of the leaves that have already fallen had been carted away for the weekend's festivities, but a single gold one alighted near my foot and came to rest against a curling dandelion, papery and as transparent as Summer's silhouette can be, perhaps the sign the hawk had been seeking.


My heart breaks every year at the passing of Summer, but tonight, as I prepared a heaping pot of chili, I kept the patio doors open to allow the air inside while Duncan curled up with Bugsy on the cool cement, his nose still turned toward the now empty field across the street. While I chopped and cut and mixed and sipped from the spiced rum which I dribbled into the pot, the slap of a baseball striking a bat rang loud and true, followed by the frenzied cries of the team and spectators. It was a welcome sound, a song of summer, and seemed to drive back my autumn melancholy a bit. Summer is not gone. Not yet, not as long as the lights on the field slice the night and I can hear the game, as long as there is a dandelion left to cast a shadow.