August 2015

The land sings of deep drought—the stress is on. Crispy, parched melody –leaves of the white oak are brown and withering like it’s Fall—but it’s too early.

Songbirds pant and teeter in the wind on the telephone wire. The finch peer, seemingly with longing, at the prairie pond, but I am down there with three bird-dogs.

As soon as we begin departure, our fourteen feet flittering fine dust into a rising cloud that pins the dogs’ claws and gnaws its way between their toes and my toes inside nylon-rubber sandals.

The flash of departing dusty pink Capris pants, and the finch descend in a group — swoop to stand along the crusty demarcation line between liquid and earth. In unison the heavy beaks dip for one long sip.