It is plain as day, and as hot as it gets.

It is as plain as day, and as hot as it gets. Two thirty in the afternoon in august. The light spills through the western kitchen windows.  Pushy and undivided, it pours through both the thick mexican quilt hanging on the window and the lacy tablecloth, improvised into another curtain for the indoor dwellers to see.

The light spills through the pair of curtains, and spirals onto the floor. Slight breeze shifts the angles of spillage..making squares of light on the honey colored floor, followed by slanted trapezoidal shapes.

The sun takes a break, and I find myself breathing more deeply. Squares and trapezoids vanish. Breeze continues, picking up speed as I gaze. Feeling a slight coolness reaching my knees, underneath the maple wood dining room table, I am pleased. Temporarily I feel soothed and rewarded. For taking the time to notice, for slowing down and letting myself be cooled by the changing conditions.

Both cats are sprawled out on the couch, parallel to the northern facing windows. Not being as sensitive to the heat as their mom, they enter into dream states I only wish would become the afternoon's activity. The muse says no. You must follow this train of thought until the last whistle blows. I know there won't be any whistle. She tells me I am only cheating myself. I resume finishing the piece.

A knock on the door from the mailmen signals, enough for one day. Hands, hot, keyboard sticky, I know it is time to lay horizontal and to dream of cooler days ahead.

Kate Lamberg
8/9/12