August ends, at last. You can see a tree under a canopy of apple trees. You can see a frog in a ditch. …and just enough water trickles off the porch roof, enough to keep the soil and skin intact and moist, enough to keep the earthworms quiet.
I’m standing by the oak tree that my father planted—what?—some forty years ago. I’m not thinking of him so much right now and I’m not thinking of the tree either. I’m watching the new sprinklers spray the grass. I’m not sure why; I just like it. You can stand there right in front of the tree and not get wet. The spray has left a watermark, though, a ring underneath the bark, as though the rain could reach up through the grass and leave a secret sign…
The snails of summer crawl across the lawn so slowly. So even while you are on a train to Chicago— it is September now— I can still reach up to pull you down to earth. You stay right here. You can never leave earth in August, not with her skin and soil so engorged.