It's Hammock Time (Can't Touch This)

This afternoon, lying in my hammock in the backyard. Spring has begun to feel permanent; 77 degrees F and the sky is an impossible shade of blue-- a blue that, if you saw it in someone's painting of the sky you would say looks fake. The trees from the neighbor's yard have begun to bud chartreuse-green leaves that poke from the tips of skinny bare brown branches that have sheltered doves and squirrels all winter. There is a slight breeze, and the same doves mournfully call to each other, as though they're saddened by the coming warmth. Grackles buzz warning clicks and swoop down on green lizards. The windchimes on the back grapevine trellis sing out irregular, gentle high notes. Up above my head, the branches of the neighbor's tree merge with those of my oaks-- the moss covered wooden arms twist and bend, and a canopy of greens and dark browns, shadows and hot white sunlight breaks up that impossible blue sky.

A black butterfly flits across, darting towards and away, driven, perhaps, on those same slight breezes which give the wind chimes their music.

I look at the way the light and shadows play on the leaves of the Japanese plum tree in the corner; in some places, the green is so dark it looks black, and others are softly white, as though you would touch velvet. Monet was supposed to have been obsessed with capturing a certain quality of light on a pool of water lilies, painting the same greens and purples and blues over and over again. I can understand his obsession as I lie in the hammock, holding it still from a sway that makes me slightly nauseous. My cat meows; she sounds as though her heart has been broken by some deeply wounding loss; the end of the meow is slightly breathy and sounds like a baby crying.

Spring in Texas, with oak trees and mockingbirds whirling above, is glorious. It makes up, a little, for the Hell of summer that is ahead of us.