7 pm

In response to writing prompt #4 & #5

I drive down the street, catching the sun winking at me from behind the trees.  There are sprinklers skittering across manicured lawns, an older couple walking a small, white dog, passed by joggers who are charging up on endorphins.  I pass apartment buildings, cul-de-sacs, and parks.  All well kept, because I live in Bountiful.  A city that is all crisp edges and as proper and upstanding as it's citizens.  It is the white collared cousin to blue collared Salt Lake City located only a scant 15 minutes south.  White picket fences, and carefully tended gardens are blooming with purple sylvia, pink lupine, and confetti-colored petunias.  There are blazing red flowers on a bush that I don't know the name of, but it is so full, that it is drooping under their weight.  The color becomes emblazoned in my mind's eye.  I become drunk with the rich golden light that is casting an amber glow on everything.  This is my favorite time of day, at this specific time of year: early summer, 7 pm.  There is nothing that compares to the leaves as they shine like polished jade from the light of the sun.  Or the long, dramatic shadows that are reaching across to gently close the valley's eyes for night.  

For some reason I can't explain, at this time of day I always smell the subtle, wild perfume of willows and water.  A scent that calms me.  I picture myself sitting on a river's edge with my feet submerged in an icy, tittering creek, daring myself to see how long I can stand the thrill it gives me.  I want to laugh.  I want to scream.  I am surrounded by a wild, verdant wood, alive and creaking, and murmuring secrets in my ear.  But mostly, it whispers a song from long ago.  A honeyed melody that floats past my ear, and splinters on a soft breeze.

"So won't you come with me where the wood willow grows,

And watch it meander slowly as the sky turns from light to dark?"

Finally the dregs of the day are gone as the sun is sipped below the horizon.   As I come back to myself, I am left only with the throaty sound of crickets as they sing a in a nearby field.