[TALE] First Day Of Summer
It was the last day of school before the summer. I was just a boy back then, and it was still tradition to end the school year in church. We had spent the morning in school as usual, being preached to by teachers and settling whatever formalities remained before the summer break. We were nicely dressed for the occasion, and the teachers hurried to get us onto the bus for our trip to church before we had the chance to tumble about too much in the grass.
There was a bubbling sort of energy rising within us, a giddiness and an excitement that resisted every attempt at containment. The teachers barked orders like sweating guard dogs, and though it was like herding cats they eventually managed to corral us onto the bus. The chatter and the hollering on board rose to a shrill din and though the other children spent the trip fidgeting and talking about their summer plans, my attention was elsewhere. I sat in my usual dreamy mood, watching the scenes unfold outside my window as the bus drove through the village and into the sunny countryside.
The colors on the facades of the little village houses were vibrant with an excitement all of their own, shining back at the sun in their faded turquoises, yellows and pinks. Smiling blue wooden details stood out against dreaming white plaster, and the flowering hollyhocks crowded every corner, a dazzle of pink against the greens and yellows of rose bushes. The old courtyards of the mudbrick houses, which look so desolate and haunted in autumn, were alive with flowers and bushes brimming over the iron gates and fences. The whole village was vibrantly alive under the gold-crested blue sky, a thousand places to wander and explore, to play and dream.
Leaving the village, I could see the endless fields of canola. The golden flowers shivered in the wind like waves, and we rode over the rolling hills as if in a great ship over golden seas. An archipelago of little wooded islands and lonesome hamlets dotted the yellow ocean. A few larger islands came and went, cattle grazing by the golden shores. More than once we sailed past the dilapidated remains of old farm shacks, sinking into the golden waters like scuppered ships.
Far ahead over the bow of our vessel, I could see the hills rising over the canola, and among them the teeming greenery. Soon we had left the seas and were snaking through a narrow road that passed through a small village hidden among the hills. We swerved around the lake that marks center of that village. Great maple and birch trees rose on the tiny island in the middle of the lake, and ducks swam among the softly bobbing water lilies.
We exited this village through a tunnel of trees. Great oaken boughs enclosed our world from either side of the road. The gilded sunlight streamed through the wind-touched trees in a dance of shadow and gold, the emerald leaves ablaze with verdant life. It was like passing through a great temple built from the living forest itself, the heavy trunks like pillars, and dark boughs forming arches far above us.
Supported by these arches were frescoes and murals painted in the greens of the forest and the blue-and-gold of the sky. The road before us was like a mosaic floor of shadow and light that shifted and changed with the wind. The bare ground shone through in reddish-brown patches among the undergrowth, bringing an earthy warmth to the distant celestial hues and the soothing greens.
Entering this great temple, all sounds seemed to dim, and every little face turned to the windows. For such was the magnificence of the natural temple that for the few minutes we passed through it, all were held in awe by the summer majesty of these trees rejoicing in the sun and the open sky.
Through a burst of light we left the tunnel, coursing through the open fields once more. We rode along the shore where a sea of wheat met the green wall of the forest. This shore snaked through the landscape, the forest towering above us like a cliff face and the wheat stretching to the horizon in flowing waves.
Where the canola had been a bright and lively sea of gold, the wheat was dreamy and graceful. The waves were smoother, more refined in their movements, giving this gilded ocean an otherworldly quality. I felt as if I was passing through an indolent dream, a threshold between worlds. This uncanny dream ended with the appearance of the church, a white tower rising among gardens and tombstones.
We had finally arrived.
*
Leaving the bus did little to shake me from my reveries. While the excitement rose among my classmates, I was dreaming of the wonders of the church grounds. They hosted a summer celebration all of their own that seemed to mimic our excitement. The tall maples and oaks stood like gentle sentinels over the little white chapel by the entrance to the graveyard, their leafy branches crowning the heavens like a laurel wreath.
Under the wreathed brow of the blue sky rose the somber black tombstones with their golden lettering. A quiet but dignified reminder of death, they stood unyielding among the reveling flower beds. These flowers sang in a thousand colors around their silent companions, running around their legs like little children drunk on summer and youth. Flowing like arteries around the stones and the golden-green grass were red-graveled foot paths that seemed to want to carry me with them.
Like a drop of life sent forth by the pulse of the world, I wanted to run down those paths and see what was behind every stone and tree. The paths all emptied into the main path up to the church, a wide foot path of white gravel that glittered like pearls in the sun. At the end of this shimmering bridge were the patina-green doors of the church, open and welcoming, the white robes of the priest shining in the opening.
Entering the church, I felt a peculiar feeling begin to stir inside of me. It was a familiar feeling, for I had felt it every time I had gone to church, and a few other times besides. It was the feeling of a hidden depth suddenly opening up inside of me, a place of secrets and mysteries. I felt the thrill of having been told a secret that no one else knew, the excitement of exploring a place only I seemed to notice, and the anxiousness of prying eyes upon me. For though the interior of the church was decorated with crosses and biblical imagery, to me it seemed to be the home of very different gods.
Here was Stone, heavy and ageless, present in the boundaries that formed this sacred hall. Within his impenetrable body lay Space, vast and ever-distant, spreading out in all directions. Pondering upon the Endless One’s every breath sat Sound, deep and intense, moved by every movement and repeating every word. Moving, also, was ever-youthful Light, dancing in a thousand colors through the stained glass, playful and free. Finally, hiding among the crowd of boys that began filling the pews, was Mischief. He slithered under the benches, peaked out from the shadows and skipped from shoulder to shoulder as boys whispered dares and profanity.
It was these primordial gods which had stirred my sense of wonder, which had awakened in me the thrill of the vast and the hidden. Now seated with my friends in the back pew, I sunk into my seat and hid in the crowd, fleeing the watchful eyes of the teachers that I might better dive into these hidden depths. Then the singing began, and I saw the secret unfold.
In a single fluid motion, Sound lifted the air of the great hall with the first note of the pipe organ. So spry were those notes when guided by her hand that they reached the furthest peaks of Stone’s unyielding frame, and far into the shadowy corners where Mischief hides. All through the vastness of Space did Sound make herself heard, a trembling power that defied all, and Sound and Space became one.
The voices of the children around me joined in with the music, and young lips sent forth the words of praise that heralded the arrival of Summer. They sang of flowers and of grass, of the warmth returning to what is dead, of the rebirth of everything in the light of the sun. A shiver of delight went over me as the song drowned out the world itself, and I could see how Summer emerged from the waters of the music, taking a step with each new note.
As the children sang of the meadows and of the trees, she bedecked her golden hair with flowers and leaves, and playful Light swept himself around her like a shimmering gown. And like that, Summer stood before us in the great hall of the church. Clothed in the rays of the sun, hair full of flowers and green leaves, called forth by song – here was the returning force of Life come to rule the vault of heaven, and the wide fields and blooming forests. Even immovable Stone was touched by her presence, and Mischief peeked forth from behind her flowing dress to whisper promises of boyhood adventures.
*
When the singing was over and the sermon had been said, we burst through the doors of the church and back out into the blinding golden sun. We were ushered on in our mad rush by Summer herself, her presence in the church having roused us with her many beauties, her promises of leisure and her font of endless youth. We had practically been shaking at the end of it, eager to begin our long respite from the drudgery of the classrooms.
As our feet struck the crunching gravel path, a flock of pigeons scattered into the air before us in a flurry of clawed feet and feathers. But this did not stop our mad dash back to the school bus, nor did the wonders of the blossoming world which had so captivated me before. I had been caught by the same bubbling excitement that the other boys felt, and the bus trip home passed by in a daze.
We sailed back the way we had come, on the shores of golden seas and through forest temples; through the quaint little village among the hills and the archipelago of little farmhouses; over the waves of yellow canola, and through the streets of painted houses. We were back at the school again, and after a hasty headcount the teacher sent us on our way home.
I left the throng of kids waiting for their parents to pick them up, and wandered through the streets of the village back to my house. Once more I began to dream of the many-colored mudbrick houses and their blossoming courtyards, of the narrow streets amid hollyhocks taller than myself. All was sun and green leaves, the gentle pink of flowers, the song of birds.
There was a leisurely stillness over the village, as if the whole world had put down their tools to go rest in the shade. The wind had picked up a little, a gentle breeze through my white shirt. I closed my eyes and turned the corner down my street, where I could smell the wet asphalt on our neighbor’s driveway. As I opened my eyes, the light from the sun blinded me in in a single flash of gold from the wet pavement that shone straight through my body.
I was blinded for only a moment, but in that moment there was only light and warmth and the gentle breeze. There was only the ever-returning flowers, the singing of birds and children, the stillness of the vast blue sky. There was only Summer, golden-haired and white-armed, bejeweled in blossoms, ever-smiling.
In that moment, I knew freedom and joy and youth unending.