The burning cathedral of the summer

 

photo by Barbara Thistle   Cape May New Jersey

 

“I walk without flinching through the burning cathedral of the summer.

 My bank of wild grass is majestic 

and full of music.  It is a fire that solitude presses against my lips.”

–  Violette Leduc

 

It is 94 degrees here this afternoon, with a heat index of 106. So it is the burning cathedral of summer.  I am hoping for some thunderstorms to break the heat.

 

“Bright was the summer’s noon when quickening steps
Followed each other till a dreary moor
Was crossed, a bare ridge clomb, upon whose top
Standing alone, as from a rampart’s edge,
I overlooked the bed of Windermere,
Like a vast river, stretching in the sun.”
–  William Wordsworth, Summer Vacation, 1805

 

“July is the seventh month of the year according to the Gregorian calendar.  It was the fifth month in the early calendar of the ancient Romans.  The Romans called the month Quintilius, which means fifth.  A Roman Senate renamed the month to Julius (July) in honour of Julius Caesar, who was born on 12 July.  The Anglo-Saxon names for the month included Heymonath or Maed monath, referring respectively to haymaking and the flowering of meadows.”