Daisy Days

The Dog Days. We associate that name with August and what my mother termed, "The Beastly Heat." But July has its dog days, too. I enjoy seeing the innovative ways people embrace it. For instance, at P.S. 183 Robert Louis Stevenson School of Discovery, the playground faces East 67th Street. I was struck happy by the sight of what appeared to be an end of year field day. Picnic tables were laid out with chess sets. The rook, the king, the queen and court were made of a cool icy shade of sturdy plastic. Nearby, there was an oscillating sprinkler throwing water over the players. The children for whom chess might be too stationary pranced and squealed and tried to escape (but not too seriously) the coming deluge. Or, as when attending a Mets vs. Oakland Athletics game, I sat way up on the top row. The evening breezes, the view of the river, the antics of the young fans just in front made summer temperatures drop a few degrees. Perhaps my favorite form of enjoying summer, though, is like Ubu in the photo: a good nap after a few chapters of a good book, especially like the one I'm reading, THE DOG WHO CAME IN FROM THE COLD.  I can skip the paper fans and luxuriate in what a friend in Roanoke calls the world's greatest invention--air conditioning. 

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THE BOY WITH THE BASEBALL GLOVE

This is how it will always be for him:

the high clouds, the mild Spring air,

the ball hurtling out of reach

and the feel of stretching

beyond all hope.

When he is old the infirmities will lighten

because of this moment.

All later moments will be measured by it.

He will listen absent-mindedly to

what's important, what's true

on other people's minds.

Hotheadedly, he will disagree,

reveling in argument but

he is not really there.

He is present to another time, another terrain.

He is attuned to the sound of the

umpire's shout, the runners whizzing to homeplate,

the instantaneous deafness

of this impossible catch.

...may you have rest and activity in sweet proportion.. 

Photo Credit: George Page