Summer's End

As summer comes to a close, here are two pieces by Claudine Harris to celebrate the season.

All Things Shimmering

     Never been to Missouri, never expect to go there. But every summer a day comes when boxes of their bounty piles into my co-op store. Missouri peaches are here! One of the embellishments of summer. Long awaited. Long dreamed of. Peaches arrive the same week Marvin's sweet corn is heaped high on the counter, its brown silks limply cascading from tight green husks, like so many dark tresses on a pillow. Corn fresh from the field. There is none better, swiftly, slightly simmered, and eaten at once.
     Summer mornings are too hot, even at dawn, to tempt a walk through the neighborhood before settling down to writing. A pair of goldfinches beyond my window cling upside down on the drying stalks of catnip and nameless weeds, pecking at the seeds of August. Blossoms of impatiens in the rock wall await silently the brief thunderstorm that may bring them relief.
     Evening is corn on the cob, glistening droplets on my window screen, and a peach.
     August is all things shimmering.

Butterflies

     At last a summer day like those in childhood, bright and clear, wind free, dry. Endless. A day to chase butterflies, made mud pies in the shade and color them with the rainbow tables in a paintbox.
     Climb a tree to near its top and sway there, holding tight, hoping to see a boat leave the dock on the lake at Vevey. Summer in 36, 37? But this is Iowa, already the end of August.
     The paintbox is long abandoned with the dolls. Trees are not climbable and no lake stretches out, lazy, to distant blue-gray slopes. Butterflies only seldom flitter by the window.