There is a time in early August when a haunting feeling of change stirs in the inner depths of those tuned in to the rhyme and reason of Appalachian Mountain Country rhythm and seasons.
The feeling comes when the days turn cool and occasionally rainy and is most noticeable when gazing out over fields now in the maturity of Summer.
Cat-o-nine-tails probe the air with strong erect stalks. Bulrush weeds stand out straight and abrupt in the low wetlands between meadows and fields.
Butterflies are abundant in flipping, floating fight over the full-blossomed milkweed and thistle.
Many of the wildflowers have turned to seed. Bird
talk tells us the distant early stirring of that instinctual migration force at work which
calls for seed energy that will power them south for the winter.
These are the lazy days when lounging is more and leaping is less.
The pages of August are the epitome of this year's summer time and color time. Deep purple aster, winking, blinking brown-eyed susans and the bright white of Queen-Anne's-lace fill the fields with a very pretty sparkle.
Goldenrod's in early August are more than dress for the shoulders of waysides and byways; they are the turning point of this year's Summer into Autumn, increasing in numbers and varieties as one day melts into the next.
In just a few blinks of an eye, our place on the Earth goes from daylight to sundown to twilight, leaving us breathless with an enchanting afterglow. The dark of night soon comes but the brightness of this lovely Summer day lingers on.
A low, flat, cloud cover is stretched out in thin tiers of muslin sheeting above the horizon. They are stained in pastel reds, yellows and golds as though dipped into the pot at the end a the rainbow.
Floating in on the night the "Light Fairies" dust the dark with the light of the stars blinking and twinkling to bring us a little closer to the Heaven on this beautiful Earth we call home.
Copyright © 1988, 1999 Barbara A. Smith and John G. Hipps. All rights reserved.
This essay was first published Aug. 10, 1988 in the Free-Press Courier, Westfield, Pennsylvania.