The heat beats down. My soul is groaning, ready for a change of temperature. Surely, it will come soon.

Here’s a positive summer thought by Ivan Turgenev, in his Sketches from a Hunter’s Album. “It was a beautiful July day, one of those days which occur only when the weather has been unchanged for a long time.”

I guess that’s it. The weather has been unchanged. The bright sun beems down. The wilting green leaves of the oak trees are now tinged with yellow, the earth is parched and cracking, the cicadas drone from their perches high in the tree branches, dazed by the heat.  The flagstones and bricks throw the heat back at my face as the temperatures soar into triple digits. At noon, the colors of nature seem faded by the intense sun. Only at morning and at dusk do the greens seem as rich, the pinks and yellows of summer as luscious. 

I found, in the writing of desert lover Edward Abbey, a thought that echoes my own, “Late in August, the lure of the mountains becomes irresistible,” a quote from Desert Solitaire. I, too, am feeling that call.

Another thought:
“The drowsy heat of middle August lay heavy as a fur robe on the upper country of the Shell River, the North Platte of the white man. Almost every noon the thunder built themselves a dark cloud to ride the far crown of Laramie Peak.” Mari Sandoz,in  Crazy Horse.

Similar events here, storm clouds build some distance from my home, only to dissipate after a few showers, evaporating into the heated atmosphere, blowing themselves out. We wait for change, then, for summer mornings with a temperature below 75, and evenings when a cool breeze will blow out of the north. Surely, it will not be long.