hemlocks and poppycock

From underneath my favorite tree, heavy with pollen, I gaze up at the shifting light through the bursting leaves. The sunlight drips onto my toes and splotches on my face as the branches try to catch the afternoon beams. A spider web glints shyly from an upper twig, but the spider is not at home. She is most likely trying to decide if white or red wine would suit tonight’s supper, which is currently thrashing in the broken strands. The light pollen sinks to the ground in a white swirl, making me dizzy as it traces the trips in the breeze. It becomes a summer snow once it relaxes on the ground, warm and yielding to my curious hands. A fuzzy round bumblebee, searching for any remaining spring flower in the high branches, hums lazily and makes me doubt that the buzz is not from its wings, but actually a tune his father taught him in the spring to drone as he is working. I wonder how long their party last night must have lasted as I see hung-over flies, bleary eyed and confused, swerving through the long grass. I feel like I’m underwater as the dappled light, swaying on the ground when the wind bends the upper branches, mimics the sun hitting the water and sinking in the breaks of the waves. The effect is enhanced as the rushing of leaves break on the shore in my mind. As I close my eyes and the soft watery light hits my lids, the red with veins crossing through it is all I can see. I think of new lives, moving inside of warm stomachs as the birds skip in the trees above, talking to each other in French or Spanish. Either way, it’s a language I will never be able to understand.