Midsummer

It is here at last. The longest evening, light's swan song and the season's, the highest pitch of the singing year.

As the sun goes down, the sky is slick and translucent, like the film of water at the edge of the tide, at the furthest point that the sea reaches, nuzzling the earth with its lips, then retreating in a kowtow of waves.

The long-lived day dies.

The night is revealed, moist and glistening, night of mystery and mistaken loves, Shakespeare's night, who knew that young lovers sleep little and dream shallow, that poetry is spun from cobwebs and moonshine, that the mischief of shadows cannot offend. And that there is always, somewhere, the man who sleeps alone and dreams of beauty, and who will wake in the morning feeling like an ass.