A Summer Afternoon

Send us Fan MailSleepy Summer AfternoonIt’s a lazy, sleepy afternoon, the villages are empty, flowers,in colours of summer, curtsy and nod in the baking sunlight, radiating off walls and shimmering rooftops,and, as if uplifted, a single buzzard flies and swoops overhead. It’s so warm, the distance is translated, from far and away, to the here and now: a band of light above the winding road, the asphalt, soft, under the lens of light, a magnifying glass to places and oases beyond the peel of church bells, that mark, in a sudden silence, the slipping of hours. And it is here that I stop, and step off the path, lean over the fence, across the summer gardens, the flowerbeds, the well kept lawns, abandoned lawnmowers, the hiss of water sprinklers, the hurried slam of descending sun blinds, and here it is that I stop, and look at the world from the side.And beyond the crumbling brick wall, the crooked apple tree, bending like Father Time,over the broken gap, the open doorway, where butterflies dance and tarry, I see further than myself, the slow patterns of the wind and seasons, the trembling shadow hands of leaves, and deeper, further into the folds and valleys of the distances that await me.But of course,I am blind. I can see no further than the fingers of my left hand, the hand that feels the breeze flow thorough and across it. and the  memories and whispers of former times,they, that gather and press around me, shaping, waiting, listening to my breathing, hearing the dance of my heart as I slowly feel myself slipping, stretching and falling [email protected]