High Woon 
that falls only when the leaves hang limp, when the 
earth warms in the shadows, when the wood-lily 
opens in the sun, and the whir of the cicada times 
the throbbing of the heat. And when that some- 
thing falls, then I know it is summer. 
This is a late July day, but its dawn was still of 
the springtime. At daybreak the birds were singing, 
fresh and full-throated as in May; then the sun 
burned through the mist and the chorus ceased. 
Now I do not hear even the chewink and the talka- 
tive vireo. Only the fiery notes of the scarlet tana- 
ger come to me through the dry white heat of the 
noon, and the resonant, reverberated song of the 
indigo bunting, a hot, metallic, quivering song, as 
out of a hot and copper sky. 
There are nestlings still in the woods. This indigo 
bunting has eggs or young in the bushes up the hill- 
side; the scarlet tanager but lately finished his nest 
in the tall oaks; I looked in upon some half-fledged 
cuckoos along the fence. But all of these are late. 
The year’s young are upon the wing. A few of the 
spring’s flowers are still opening. I noticed the bees 
upon some tardy raspberry blossoms; and yonder, 
amid the fixed shining colors of the wooded ridge, I 
Is! 
