Month By Month

August

8/10/00

Dear Veiling Haze,

You trick me terribly every morning when I wake. I must say, I do hate you. You are a devil-thing. Haze, smoke, shrouds; smog, murk, clouds!

It's natural to see mist in the morn when waking among mountains, but you are not just dew, my dame! You're a fledgling of fire, masking the sun, casting it in a hateful glow which words simply fail to describe. You make Helios' dish look like a grapefruit from another dimension—acidic to all senses, and terribly neon.

I wish these words were erasable, but alas, I write in blue ink. I bring this up to acknowledge how amateur and poorly-written that sun analogy was!

Anyway, this haze. August and its haze. All the snow is gone, and the elk lie as if dead in the sparse shade of the forest, flanks heaving in the heat. I have half a mind to go about naked, but unfortunately the sun burns. And I never hear the red-wingeds call anymore; they must be so overwhelmed in their billowing black clothes. And the pond is rank with algae; its waters shrink by the hour.

But I'm made most miserable by my melancholy mindset. All wordplay and joking aside, there's something about August that causes my happiness, my contentedness, to stagnate. The freedom I've felt over these eight incredible months has sobered. I slink from shadow to shadow, avoiding the light I can. I try to stir up a cry each night, but I find, in the humid stalling air, that I can't. I can't cry. I can hardly even sleep. It's not easy to get up in the morning because there's nothing to get up to.

I want an escape from this numbing claustrophobia. I want to sleep the next three weeks through. That's all. I know it's too much to ask, so I won't make any selfish prayers. I'm not big on those things anyway.

August, the month haze colored the stars gray.