"Bonnie Kellswater" Sequenced by Barry Taylor Photos by James Reeder Artwork by Mac Cat graphic adapted from clip at ArtToday Admittedly, summer is not my favorite of the seasons. I don't do well in hot weather, and this is most amply illustrated by the fact that I live in Seattle and still resent the two weeks of eighty-plus temperatures we sometimes get after July 4th. But summer is (by and large) the time of long, grass scented days and starlit nights of frog concerts. Fat, glossy squirrels potter in our back yard, tossing an occasional contempt-laden sneer at the neighbor's cat and regarding the dog warily from the fence highway that keeps them relatively safe from his businesslike stalking of them. Otherwise amiable enough, our Rowdy is a hunter by nature, and we can't convince him to the contrary. The squirrels retaliate by launching Doug Fir cones at him from thirty feet in the air while delivering truly fearsome invective. It's the summers we seem to remember best when we reach the age of nostalgia. Perhaps this is because it personifies the carefree quality of childhood. Certainly we have very few such times as adults. To a child, summer means a certain measure of liberty. It means swimming holes (concrete and filtered or otherwise), the Icecream Man, camping in the back yard, or just lying face down on the lawn watching bugs. There's more time for us as children then, it seems like...time when we aren't as noticeably answerable to the puzzling demands of grownups and the bewildering straight lines and right angles of a society we will someday be responsible for. Bicycles have wings, food is most often eaten with the hands, and there are lightyears between us and the tyranny of school. It is in summer we most fully realize ourselves as children, and it is to this place we return when the constraints of Responsibility chafe. Lughnasadh Midsummer Afternoon on a Hill I WILL be the gladdest thing Under the sun! I will touch a hundred flowers And not pick one. I will look at cliffs and clouds With quiet eyes, Watch the wind bow down the grass, And the grass rise. And when lights begin to show Up from the town, I will mark which must be mine, And then start down! Edna St.Vincent Millay "About the photo 'Summer Night'. The original title of this picture was 'Bend In The Loyalsock'. The Loyalsock is the beautiful creek which flows past my town. The indian name for it was "Lawisaquick" -- which translates into "middle creek" -- it is the middle of three large tributaries to the north branch of the Susquehanna river.Loyalsock is the early settlers perversion of the indian name." J.Reeder The Cat and the Moon "THE CAT went here and there And the moon spun round like a top, And the nearest kin of the moon The creeping cat looked up. Black Minnaloushe stared at the moon, For wander and wail as he would The pure cold light in the sky Troubled his animal blood. Minnaloushe runs in the grass, Lifting his delicate feet. Do you dance, Minnaloushe, do you dance? When two close kindred meet What better than call a dance? Maybe the moon may learn, Tired of that courtly fashion, A new dance turn. Minnaloushe creeps through the grass From moonlit place to place, The sacred moon overhead Has taken a new phase. Does Minnaloushe know that his pupils Will pass from change to change, And that from round to crescent, From crescent to round they range? Minnaloushe creeps through the grass Alone, important and wise, And lifts to the changing moon His changing eyes." William Butler Yeats To Autumn Directory Home
Admittedly, summer is not my favorite of the seasons. I don't do well in hot weather, and this is most amply illustrated by the fact that I live in Seattle and still resent the two weeks of eighty-plus temperatures we sometimes get after July 4th.
But summer is (by and large) the time of long, grass scented days and starlit nights of frog concerts. Fat, glossy squirrels potter in our back yard, tossing an occasional contempt-laden sneer at the neighbor's cat and regarding the dog warily from the fence highway that keeps them relatively safe from his businesslike stalking of them. Otherwise amiable enough, our Rowdy is a hunter by nature, and we can't convince him to the contrary. The squirrels retaliate by launching Doug Fir cones at him from thirty feet in the air while delivering truly fearsome invective.
It's the summers we seem to remember best when we reach the age of nostalgia. Perhaps this is because it personifies the carefree quality of childhood. Certainly we have very few such times as adults. To a child, summer means a certain measure of liberty. It means swimming holes (concrete and filtered or otherwise), the Icecream Man, camping in the back yard, or just lying face down on the lawn watching bugs. There's more time for us as children then, it seems like...time when we aren't as noticeably answerable to the puzzling demands of grownups and the bewildering straight lines and right angles of a society we will someday be responsible for. Bicycles have wings, food is most often eaten with the hands, and there are lightyears between us and the tyranny of school. It is in summer we most fully realize ourselves as children, and it is to this place we return when the constraints of Responsibility chafe.
I WILL be the gladdest thing Under the sun! I will touch a hundred flowers And not pick one.
I will look at cliffs and clouds With quiet eyes, Watch the wind bow down the grass, And the grass rise.
And when lights begin to show Up from the town, I will mark which must be mine, And then start down!
Edna St.Vincent Millay
"About the photo 'Summer Night'. The original title of this picture was 'Bend In The Loyalsock'. The Loyalsock is the beautiful creek which flows past my town. The indian name for it was "Lawisaquick" -- which translates into "middle creek" -- it is the middle of three large tributaries to the north branch of the Susquehanna river.Loyalsock is the early settlers perversion of the indian name."
J.Reeder
"THE CAT went here and there And the moon spun round like a top, And the nearest kin of the moon The creeping cat looked up.
Black Minnaloushe stared at the moon, For wander and wail as he would The pure cold light in the sky Troubled his animal blood.
Minnaloushe runs in the grass, Lifting his delicate feet. Do you dance, Minnaloushe, do you dance? When two close kindred meet
What better than call a dance? Maybe the moon may learn, Tired of that courtly fashion, A new dance turn.
Minnaloushe creeps through the grass From moonlit place to place, The sacred moon overhead Has taken a new phase.
Does Minnaloushe know that his pupils Will pass from change to change, And that from round to crescent, From crescent to round they range?
Minnaloushe creeps through the grass Alone, important and wise, And lifts to the changing moon His changing eyes."
William Butler Yeats
