Syrupy Summer Light

Shrouded in smoke from the forest fires the garden was still calm without a breeze. Sitting so quietly and waiting like the rest of us for the hope of a cooler summer day. 

It was one of those remarkable temperate days that stuck in your summer memory, brought out during winters chill when you could no longer feel your fingertips...full of lush green growth, and generously spreading warmth....the rare one that seem to come only as the bookends of summer. 

Hot syrupy light was poured over everything that night... the kind that is so worth venturing out into the hot night for..the light...it laughed as it swirled among the petals, and wound through the stems of the flowers....glowing amongst soft leaves and glittering off of hard reflective surfaces. The heat radiating outwards, earth smelling of the scorched fabric...like an old-fashioned ironing board.

Last week the hummingbirds were all over the Bee Balm, now it's out of fashion, they're ignoring it and instead fawning over the fluorescent gaudy tones of the bright pink phlox.

"Such gaudy colors"...that's what the other perennials in the garden whisper about the Phlox...but that plant doesn't care...it's getting all of the attention in the garden right now from the hummers and the pollinators.

Honeybees swarmed the purple veronica in the fading light last night while standing as close as I dared, bare legs sweating with more than heat, camera held still the horizon moved languidly towards its date with the dark.

The buzzing of the bees a comforting sound as it welcomed the darkening.

The other perennials stood silently baking in the hot earth, roots deep, and petals grating the air, hoping for a drink.

Soon the Echinachea's time will come...the dusky pink petals are waiting....