Summer Shapes th Scenery

We set up our tent, secure the gear, and sink into the deep green quiet of the woods, even though it's a state campground, and boomboxes crackle by the campfires, even though we've brought our children, one of whom doesn't understand the meaning of silence, but babbles in his own language like clear water running in a stream, or the lake water rippling off the prow of our canoe as we drift at twilight; the full moon spills its light in the water, bullfrogs chug-a-rum in the cattails, the thin blue smoke of campfires rises in the hemlocks, circles the lake, a tart blue, the berries we picked on the island, where the bushes grew over our heads, but now the dark tent of night covers the sky, and we drift off to sleep, soughed by the pines, our breath in the tent rises, joins the small music of the crickets and katydids, floats all the way to the harmony of the stars.