What if I want to go devil instead? Bow
down to the madness that makes me. Drone
of the neighbor’s mowing, a red mailbox flag
erected, a dog bark from three houses over,
and this is what a day is.

From Ada Limon’s “ Late Summer After a Panic Attack“

Quieting the buzz and hum. Celebrating the bees as they gather pollen. Smelling the just mown grass in the meadow while my feet throb from walking too much or too little. Hovering above the daisy just long enough to know its beauty. Remembering the peaches that briefly hung from park trees in perfect time. I long for perfect time.

Late summer panic is its own affliction. Not quite alive but not quite dead. Noticing it all but somehow blind. Just about to start but ready to quit just the same. Thinking quietly while screaming into the heat. Longing for something more. Not keeping lists of all the fun I was supposed to have had. Am I too hot for this world? Summer is a lot. Life is a lot. Sadness of all sorts. Grief oozes through desperate grasps at peace and hope and love. I know I am the one I wait for, but I just want to binge watch my shows and eat sushi. I know service is the answer to despair, but my head hurts when I think about all the sickness and violence and hate. Late summer seems to understand the liminal, the tired, in ways more confident seasons do not.

Hope, the kind of hope with muscles and courage and feathers, is my next stop on my late summer train. Late summer speaks of storms that quickly pass, of time slow enough to count things like blessings and ripe tomatoes, of nights long enough to get good sleep if I could. Late summer speaks of smelling the first wafts of fall, and a prayer that fall falls gently. Late summer speaks of quenched thirsts and hauntingly magical lingering sunshine.