A Rare Day, Indeed
Today is June 4, 1999. I'm sitting on the front stoop, soaking in the beauty of summer on the way. The newly planted pink and white zinnias and geraniums give our little flowerbed the look of a lace tapestry. A tiny spider is trying his best to fill in the empty spaces with a new web. A displaced ant tries desperately to reorganize his life, so rudely disrupted by the recent planting.
There
is a wren In the Japanese cherry, singing with that incessant song of joy. For
him life is good. He has plenty of food, a mate, and a new family. The warm sun
draws out the musty smell from the decaying mulch around the plants, while
overhead a thin covering of cirrus clouds give a lazy feel to a resplendent
day. How fortunate to be alive on such an afternoon. My mind drifts to thoughts
of lying under the big maple tree in the back yard as a boy and watching clouds
drift slowly by. Ah yes; school is out. "What is so Rare as a Day in
June?"
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| A Profusion of Color |
And what is so rare as a day in June?
Then, if ever, come perfect days;
Then Heaven tries the earth if it be in tune,
And over it softly her warm ear lays:
Whether we look, or whether we listen,
We hear life murmur, or see it glisten;
Every clod feels a stir of might,
An instinct within it that reaches and towers,
And, grasping blindly above it for light,
Climbs to a soul in grass and flowers;
The flush of life may well be seen
Thrilling back over hills and valleys;
The cowslip startles in meadows green,
The buttercup catches the sun in its chalice,
And there 's never a leaf or a blade too mean
To be some happy creature's palace;
The little bird sits at his door in the sun,
Atilt like a blossom among the leaves,
And lets his illumined being o'er run
With the deluge of summer it receives;
His mate feels the eggs beneath her wings,
And the heart in her dumb breast flutters and sings;
He sings to the wide world, and she to her nest,--
In the nice ear of Nature which song is the best?
-James Russell Lowell from "The Vision
of Sir Launfal."