The mountain is lazing in the heat. Trucks roll up Campbell highway from Roxboro, South Boston, Brookneal, earning their weekend on a sweltering Friday afternoon.
A sea of clouds settles in the grass, white Queen Anne’s Lace waving on a puff of oven blast air. Pine shadows and poplar shade dapples the two lane country road, a mirage of cool.
Dumas talked about The Stare, the sun baking Marseilles at the beginning of The Count of Monte Cristo. Fitzgerald ignited pages in The Great Gatsby, and Douglas Spaulding almost burned to a crisp in the July of ‘28 in Bradbury’s Dandelion Wine.
Summer lit.
But we get to live it: to flag the wind down with a sweaty hand stuck outside the car window, to light the pine needles easily in the three o clock sun for the bee smoker.
“Daddy, I’m melting” little Joey says. His father chuckles. “If you were a candy bar, you’d be in bad shape.”
“Don’t pay attention to the heat. Focus on the bees, man” I urge. “Hit ‘em with a little smoke now.”
Treasures from Earth
Grab some iced tea, duck into the shade, and crank this Gershwin tune played by Bird. Now that’s summer.
If you’re local…
“I could bring a generator.”
“Well, Josh Urban, this has been a lovely visit” the librarian sighed, exasperatedly tapping her foot.
“Okay, okay…I just wish there was a plug for my electric typewriter at the street festival. I want to write poetry for the guests!”
“How ‘bout an old school typewriter?”
“I don’t have a working one.”
“Well….!”
(And to think, this happened after I wrote about almost getting kicked out of a library.)
The happy thought was suggested by an astronomy buddy: a battery pack!
So, if you’re local, swing on by the Rustburg library street fair tomorrow (Saturday) from 10-2. I’ll be signing books and writing free verse and trying to behave.
See you there!
Josh