“Wonder what’s back here.”
The late September sun baked the yard at 1:30.
The concrete sundial was 45 minutes slow.
The birdbaths had been examined, the gargoyles inspected, the frogs and fluffy cement cats passed by, an angel selected, but…
My brother does the Urban name proud, and he too is an adept wanderer. Once, he wandered out of his sleeping bag, out of his tent, and wondered why he woke up suddenly at 3 am looking at the state park trees.
He was small then, but as his birthday approaches, he’s suddenly all the ages he ever was and ever will be. Carl Jung talks about something like that, and on these occasions lit by an increasing glow of birthday candles reflecting off frosting into people’s reminiscing eyes, it’s easy to believe that time isn’t linear.
Now, as an occasional truck rumbled south on Route 29, he wandered off the lot.
One followed, then another. Three brothers, perusing the side yard and high grass of Concrete World on a quiet afternoon.
There’s something about a birthday. Three years to his senior, I remember the toy trucks he would get as a little boy. Now we’re grown men, wandering amongst statues and swatting gnats on a Wednesday afternoon, a rare break from the usual glare of computer screens and ringing commerce.
“Where do they keep the broken stuff?”
He saw her first. Radiantly, achingly gorgeous, lying bleached in the sun, beautifully broken. Her right arm was missing, the rose she held shattered. White paint peeled off her cement form. An eternal youth, a feminine archetype, Summer herself knocked over by the turning of the seasons, waiting for the oblivion of Autumn’s rains to wash away her chances. Unless….
Mom quietly bought the statue for him. We gently picked up the broken arm, the rose, and the figure, and placed her gently in the front seat of my little Kia. “Buckle up for safety.”
The engine strained. It wasn’t used to being a cement truck. We rolled north on 29, with a symbol that I don’t quite understand, but know we all need.
Perhaps she’s the Goddess of late summer birthdays, of fond memories, of alarm of how fleeting the shadows are on the concrete sundials, the hopes of chances to come, and the gladness of arms strong enough to pick up the broken ones…arms, people, and things we don’t quite understand.
Whatever she is, she’s beautiful. So was the day.
Is the sundial set for DST? Not setting a sundial forward in the spring and back in the fall could explain the apparent 45 min (which is close to an hour) "slowness". The sundial in my front yard wiggles on the stand enough so that I can tilt it one way or the other based on if we are on daylight saving time or standard time. The sundial also used to function as a bird feeder, so is a versatile yard ornament.