Summer Night

Had I not washed the camera in our washing machine, I would have taken some incredible pictures tonight.  Although, probably, they would not have conveyed half the beauty and awe that I experienced tonight.

Liberty is a nature child.  Even in this heat, he loves to be outside.  He wanted me to go swing with him around 8 P.M.  It was still pretty light outside, but I just could not bear any more humidity nor did I feel like getting bit up by mosquitoes and other assortments of flying teeth.

Anyway, I was sitting in my rocking chair and looking through a window in the living room out to our backyard where Lib was happily sitting in his swing.  Then it hit me.

He was looking up.  He was looking at the changing light, the clouds, the sunset burning towards twilight.  He had a look of wonder on his face.  It was so beautiful, his face full of light.  And happy, not pestering me to come swing him.  Just hanging.  The way I used to with my friends on summer nights in Tennessee, lazily lying in the grass, awaiting the entrance of fireflies.  He stayed out there for a little while, sometimes leaning back in the swing, toes up, still looking at the sky, his eyes following arcs of chattering birds. 

He never used to do this.  He would be focused straight ahead, unaware of much going on around him, or at least that was my perception.

I watched the colors change and a brown gray mist fill my living room  as the sinking sun sputtered  its dying light.

Then I went outside and what I saw took my breath away.

There was a bright half moon and several diamond stars against a lavender and dark blue sky with cotton candy clouds backlit by the sunset.  Chimney swifts darted about like boomerangs, looking for a place to bed down for the night.  The katydids were in full symphony with the cicadas, and as Lib waved to me, the bullfrog chorus began.

I was enchanted.

My little boy.  He seems to have fairy dust all about him.