It is the weight of blue in the hot Sky; it is the Dog-Star strengthening the Sun; it is the Earth, weary of Summer, that drags the peaches low for easy harvest.  The birds will announce when they are ripe.  There is enough to share; enough for jam and cobbler; enough to stand and eat, dripping pink from the elbows, in the cacophony of midday.  Picked of fruit, the branches heave in relief—the burden of abundance has been lifted. Summer will be over soon—dusk comes earlier and the cicadas’ hum is more intent. Even if the vacant lots are tangled in the purple of feral flowers and curling weeds, of insects flirting and fading in the August light; and even if all of the roads out of town are lined in wildflowers—there is something in the air that whispers of frost.  You can watch the sunflowers blush in the effusive twilight—a shamble of glowing petal, ravished seedhead, and bedraggled stalk—and be sure that summer is everlasting.  But then the cicadas insist again—summer will not last forever; consume every moment.