The Rare Month of June

This year, the month of June crept up on us slowly and silently, easing it's way into the summer season, instread of "busting out all over" like the song so aptly implies. It was a chilly spring with lots of rain, and the foliage and flowers huddled until the last moment to greet the summer sun.

June is one of my favorite months. The world is new and green. It’s the time of year when the smell of roses, lily-of-the-valley, and wisteria linger on the mist as dusk arrives. It’s the month when you can smell sun-baked hay in the fields and fresh-wet earth in the gentle rains.   

If you close your eyes, you can hear a repertoire of songs from the birds—the trill of the song sparrows, the cry of the killdeers and blue jays, the chatter of the chick-a-dees, and the soft lilt of the whippoorwills. It’s a time when the wind whispers in the pines and leafy maples, and bobs and bends the tall meadow grasses into rippling waves.

June is a time of motion and excitement as butterflies, bees, and hummingbirds juggle for space and a taste of the blooming flowers. But June is serene and calm when nightfall arrives and a sliver of a golden moon hangs in the star-filled sky…and the only interruption in the silence is the tranquil sounds of night insects and tree frogs serenading each other in the grass.

And what is so rare as a day in June?
Then, if ever, come perfect days. . . 
     --From: The Vision of Sir Launfal 

 by James Russell Lowell