While we were swimming or wake surfing or slurping up vine ripe tomatoes, August snuck in. Swoosh. And just like that it’s already time to celebrate the one-week anniversary of August. Venerable. Worthy of respect… High summer. Midsummer. Summer. The apex of all that is glorious and celebratory, ripe and ready. And yet, even now as we romp and fête, living life in an exuberance of now, there are reminders that autumn will arrive just as inevitably as August. Can you hear the singing underneath? Are you receptive? Wondering, perhaps, why the Autumn Red Daylily (Hemerocallis ‘Autumn Red’) blooms now? Why it blooms so briefly before shriveling to make way for another gold star bursting crimson?
Good to wonder. And to accept that there’s a melody playing in the background, still softly but audibly for those who listen, with lilting lyrics reminding us oh-so gently that fall foliage is already beginning to blush in higher elevations, that the first melon we’re harvesting is the sweetness of summer sliding into September. So, so soon.
The Autumn Red Daylily bulbs are sown amongst the “ditch day lilies” that thrive beneath the stone wall that runs north-south dividing Rosslyn’s front yard. And they polka dot the waterfront bank, the wildflower bed, the morning room flowerbed. They splash dabs of brilliant yellow and red once the orange forerunners are memories.
They bridge the blooms risen and rising. And they remind us to play today while the sun is high, the lake is warm, the harvest is abundant.
What do you think?