Summer Showers Quotes

Ô, Wanderess, Wanderess When did you feel your most euphoric kiss? Was I the source of your greatest bliss?

I once had a love who folded secrets between her thighs like napkins and concealed memories in the valley of her breasts. There was no match for the freckles on her chest, and no one could mistake them for a field of honeysuckles. Upon her lips, a thousand lies were spread in sweet gloss. Her kiss was like a storybook from ancient history. She was at home with the body of a man inside her, beside her. At night, when she lay in bed crying, no one could mistake the tears she wept for a summer shower She is gone, my love. She was a wanderess, a wildflower.

Our lips were for each other and our eyes were full of dreams. We knew nothing of travel and we knew nothing of loss. Ours was a world of eternal spring, until the summer came.

I beg young people to travel. If you don’t have a passport, get one. Take a summer, get a backpack and go to Delhi, go to Saigon, go to Bangkok, go to Kenya. Have your mind blown. Eat interesting food. Dig some interesting people. Have an adventure. Be careful. Come back and you’re going to see your country differently, you’re going to see your president differently, no matter who it is. Music, culture, food, water. Your showers will become shorter. You’re going to get a sense of what globalization looks like. It’s not what Tom Friedman writes about; I’m sorry. You’re going to see that global climate change is very real. And that for some people, their day consists of walking 12 miles for four buckets of water. And so there are lessons that you can’t get out of a book that are waiting for you at the other end of that flight. A lot of people—Americans and Europeans—come back and go, ohhhhh. And the light bulb goes on.

Summer came. For the book thief, everything was going nicely. For me, the sky was the color of Jews. When their bodies had finished scouring for gaps in the door, their souls rose up. When their fingernails had scratched at the wood and in some cases were nailed into it by the sheer force of desperation, their spirits came toward me, into my arms, and we climbed out of those shower facilities, onto the roof and up, into eternity's certain breadth. They just kept feeding me. Minute after minute. Shower after shower.

The Day is Done The day is done, and the darkness Falls from the wings of Night, As a feather is wafted downward From an eagle in his flight. I see the lights of the village Gleam through the rain and the mist, And a feeling of sadness comes o'er me That my soul cannot resist: A feeling of sadness and longing, That is not akin to pain, And resembles sorrow only As the mist resembles the rain. Come, read to me some poem, Some simple and heartfelt lay, That shall soothe this restless feeling, And banish the thoughts of day. Not from the grand old masters, Not from the bards sublime, Whose distant footsteps echo Through the corridors of Time. For, like strains of martial music, Their mighty thoughts suggest Life's endless toil and endeavor; And to-night I long for rest. Read from some humbler poet, Whose songs gushed from his heart, As showers from the clouds of summer, Or tears from the eyelids start; Who, through long days of labor, And nights devoid of ease, Still heard in his soul the music Of wonderful melodies. Such songs have power to quiet The restless pulse of care, And come like the benediction That follows after prayer. Then read from the treasured volume The poem of thy choice, And lend to the rhyme of the poet The beauty of thy voice. And the night shall be filled with music, And the cares, that infest the day, Shall fold their tents, like the Arabs, And as silently steal away.

Ô, Muse of the Heart’s Passion, let me relive my Love’s memory, to remember her body, so brave and so free, and the sound of my Dreameress singing to me, and the scent of my Dreameress sleeping by me, Ô, sing, sweet Muse, my soliloquy!

I adore a little summer shower, said I, with a deep, appreciative intake of the damp, salty air. It makes the world smell fresh and new.

Victoria turned and got her first look at the shower-fresh version of Ford Dixon. Gorgeous as ever; six-foot plus inches of incredibly blue eyes; wet, mussed hair; low-slung jeans; and a T-shirt stretched across his broad, solid chest. And bare feet. She heard the tiny cry of a hundred unfertilized eggs as one of her ovaries exploded.

And how is Jamie doing?" "Fine. He seems to be spending a lot of time in the shower," I noted quietly, my voice so low that even Jamie's super hearing couldn't pick it up. Dick chuckled, followed by Zeb and Gabriel. "What?" "Remember that summer I turned thirteen and my mom complained that she couldn't ever get me out of the bathroom?" Zeb asked. "Yeah, but that's because you were-" I slapped my hand over my mouth. "Oh!" "Welcome to the wonderful world of parenting," Zeb said. ""It's one big, horrifying miracle." "Augh!" I grumbled.

The sidewalks were haunted by dust ghosts all night as the furnace wind summoned them up, swung them about, and gentled them down in a warm spice on the lawns. Trees, shaken by the footsteps of late-night strol- lers, sifted avalanches of dust. From midnight on, it seemed a volcano beyond the town was showering red-hot ashes every- where, crusting slumberless night watchmen and irritable dogs. Each house was a yellow attic smoldering with spon- taneous combustion at three in the morning. Dawn, then, was a time where things changed element for element. Air ran like hot spring waters nowhere, with no sound. The lake was a quantity of steam very still and deep over valleys of fish and sand held baking under its serene vapors. Tar was poured licorice in the streets, red bricks were brass and gold, roof tops were paved with bronze. The high- tension wires were lightning held forever, blazing, a threat above the unslept houses. The cicadas sang louder and yet louder. The sun did not rise, it overflowed.

Love In Autumn I sought among the drifting leaves, The golden leaves that once were green, To see if Love were hiding there And peeping out between. For thro' the silver showers of May And thro' the summer's heavy heat, In vain I sought his golden head And light, fast-flying feet. Perhaps when all the world is bare And cruel winter holds the land, The Love that finds no place to hide Will run and catch my hand. I shall not care to have him then, I shall be bitter and a-cold -- It grows too late for frolicking When all the world is old. Then little hiding Love, come forth, Come forth before the autumn goes, And let us seek thro' ruined paths The garden's last red rose.

There is no seamen in the world who prefers a slow ship to a fast one. The painters painted better, the cooks took a little more time with the meals, and the technicians tightened the bolts just a little more. Their ship was no longer a cripple, and pride broke out in the crew like a rainbow after a summer shower.

It was a summer shower but didn’t appear to know it, and it was pouring rain as fast as a winter storm. Miss Perspicacia Tick sat in what little shelter a raggedy hedge could give her and explored the universe. She didn’t notice the rain. Witches dried out quickly.

Tears are the summer showers to the soul.

And Summer, dear Summer, hath years of June, With large white clouds, and cool showers at noon; And a beauty that grows to a weight like grief, Till a burst of tears is the heart’s relief.

Sarah had introduced us to Taylor Swift’s early albums that summer, and there was this one song I played from dawn till dusk and even sang in the shower. I just couldn’t get enough of it. Now I hummed the tune softly as if I still listened to it daily.

How often we neglect, ignore, overlook, or simply miss the presence of our loving God. We often look for Him in the great rolling thunder when, more often than not, He comes in gentle whispers . . . in the soft cooing of a baby, through the touch of a loved one's hand, in the warm embrace of a trusted friend, in the pitter-patter of a sudden summer shower on a tin roof, or with the cool touch of an evening breeze on an Autumn night. Through hundreds of ways, God whispers, "I love you and I am always with you." Don't miss Him or His presence as you go through this day. Open your eyes of faith and look for Him in the most simple of ways. The experience can be extraordinary and life-changing!

April is the cruelest month, breeding Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing Memory and desire, stirring Dull roots with spring rain. Winter kept us warm, covering Earth in forgetful snow, feeding A little life with dried tubers. Summer surprised us, coming over the Starnbergersee With a shower of rain; we stopped in the colonnade, And went on in sunlight, into the Hofgarten, And drank coffee, and talked for an hour. Bin gar keine Russin, stamm' aus Litauen, echt deutsch. And when we were children, staying at the arch-duke's, My cousin's, he took me out on a sled, And I was frightened. He said, Marie, Marie, hold on tight. And down we went. In the mountains, there you feel free. I read, much of the night, and go south in the winter.

Except where Summer Preston is concerned. After having her pressed against me in the shower, I’ve had a difficult time thinking about anything else.

Like a summer shower, our words were sucked up the moment they struck the parched soil of reality.

flash summer shower.

The wind surged, and a burst of rain, barely a dozen drops, struck the blacktop ahead of me, producing the smell that is one of the finest odors in the world, the fragrance of hot asphalt in a summer shower.

A Short Story of Falling It is the story of the falling rain to turn into a leaf and fall again it is the secret of a summer shower to steal the light and hide it in a flower and every flower a tiny tributary that from the ground flows green and momentary is one of water's wishes and this tale hangs in a seed-head smaller than my thumbnail if only I a passerby could pass as clear as water through a plume of grass to find the sunlight hidden at the tip turning to seed a kind of lifting rain drip then I might know like water how to balance the weight of hope against the light of patience water which is so raw so earthy-strong and lurks in cast-iron tanks and leaks along drawn under gravity towards my tongue to cool and fill the pipe-work of this song which is the story of the falling rain that rises to the light and falls again

So along the road those flowers spread that, when touched, give down a shower of autumn rust. By every path it looks as if a ruined circus had passed and loosed a trail of ancient iron at every turning of a wheel. The rust was laid out everywhere, strewn under trees and by riverbanks and near the tracks themselves where once a locomotive had gone but went no more. So flowered flakes and railroad track together turned to moulderings upon the rim of autumm.

SUMMER SHOWER. A drop fell on the apple tree, Another on the roof; A half a dozen kissed the eaves, And made the gables laugh. A few went out to help the brook, That went to help the sea. Myself conjectured, Were they pearls, What necklaces could be! The dust replaced in hoisted roads, The birds jocoser sung; The sunshine threw his hat away, The orchards spangles hung. The breezes brought dejected lutes, And bathed them in the glee; The East put out a single flag, And signed the fete away.

I'm recovering from a nervous crack-up which visited me last summer and which has given me a merry chase. I never realized nerves were so odd, but they are. They are the oddest part of the body, no exception. Doctors weren't much help, but I found that old phonograph records are miraculous. If you ever bust up from nerves, take frequent shower baths, drink dry sherry in small amounts, spend most of your time with hand tools at a bench, and play old records till there is no wax left in the grooves.

Annie believed taste and aromas had the power to transport people from the present to other places. Sometimes this was a journey to a different mood, but it was also a form of time travel. For Annie, the subtlest whiff of freshly cut grass, or the essence of pine needles, a freshly risen cheese soufflé, the scent of a dog rose or a rain shower on autumn leaves, conjured up past summers.

She notices the unyielding ruthlessness of the storm; the crashing waves, the bitter sky kissing the water on the horizon, the keening laments of the sharp, cutting wind, and the relentless liquid deliverance of its somber showers. She’ll never forgive the audacity of the storm’s neglect.

I thought I loved Daren, and I did in a butterfly-and-hearts kind of way, but it was nothing like this. This is an asteroid shower on a summer night. A tidal wave crashing onto the breakers. Falling over the edge of Niagara Falls in an inner tube. Because I have fallen, irreparably for Gavin Murphy

Joy in the Woods There is joy in the woods just now, The leaves are whispers of song, And the birds make mirth on the bough And music the whole day long, And God! to dwell in the town In these springlike summer days, On my brow an unfading frown And hate in my heart always— A machine out of gear, aye, tired, Yet forced to go on—for I’m hired. Just forced to go on through fear, For every day I must eat And find ugly clothes to wear, And bad shoes to hurt my feet And a shelter for work-drugged sleep! A mere drudge! but what can one do? A man that’s a man cannot weep! Suicide? A quitter? Oh, no! But a slave should never grow tired, Whom the masters have kindly hired. But oh! for the woods, the flowers Of natural, sweet perfume, The heartening, summer showers And the smiling shrubs in bloom, Dust-free, dew-tinted at morn, The fresh and life-giving air, The billowing waves of corn And the birds’ notes rich and clear:— For a man-machine toil-tired May crave beauty too—though he’s hired.

It is what the unimportant do that really counts and determines the course of history. The greatest forces in the universe are never spectacular. Summer showers are more effective than hurricanes, but they get no publicity. The world would soon die but for the fidelity, loyalty and consecration of those whose names are unhonored and unsung.1

The true blessing of the mountains is not that they provide a challenge or a contest, something to be overcome and dominated (although this is how many people have approached them). It is that they offer something gentler and infinitely more powerful: they make us ready to credit marvels - whether it is the dark swirl which water makes beneath a plate of ice, or the feel of the soft pelts of moss which form on the lee sides of boulders and trees. Being in the mountains reignites our astonishment at the simplest transactions of the physical world: a snowflake a millionth of an ounce in weight falling on to one's outstretched palm, water patiently carving a runnel in a face of granite, the apparently motiveless shift of a stone in a scree-filled gully. Tu put a hand down and feel the ridges and score in a rock where a glaciers has passed, to hear how a hillside comes alive with moving water after a rain shower, to see late summer light filling miles of landscape like an inexhaustible liquid - none of these is a trivial experience. Mountains returns to us priceless capacity for wonder which can so insensibly be leached away by modern existence, and they urge us to apply that wonder to our own everyday lives.

There comes an end to summer, To spring showers and hoar rime; His mumming to each mummer Has somewhere end in time, And since life ends and laughter, And leaves fall and tears dry, Who shall call love immortal, When all that is must die ? Nay, sweet, let’s leave unspoken The vows the fates gainsay, For all vows made are broken, We love but while we may. Let’s kiss when kissing pleases, And part when kisses pall, Perchance, this time to-morrow, We shall not love at all. You ask my love completest, As strong next year as now, The devil take you, sweetest, Ere I make aught such vow. Life is a masque that changes, A fig for constancy! No love at all were better, Than love which is not free." -"To His Mistress

They listened to music that reminded Summer of things that hadn't happened yet.

People with dark souls have nothing but dark dreams. People with really dark souls do nothing but dream,” went a favorite saying of my late grandmother. The night she died, the very first thing I did was to reach my arms out and softly close her eyes. As I did this, the dream she’d held for seventy-nine years ended the way a summer shower stops falling on pavement, and after that there was nothing left.

When Spring unfolds the beechen leaf, and sap is in the bough; When light is on the wild-wood stream, and wind is on the brow; When stride is long, and breath is deep, and keen the mountain-air, Come back to me! Come back to me, and say my land is fair! entwife. When Spring is come to garth and field, and corn is in the blade; When blossom like a shining snow is on the orchard laid; When shower and Sun upon the Earth with fragrance fill the air, I’ll linger here, and will not come, because my land is fair. ent. When Summer lies upon the world, and in a noon of gold Beneath the roof of sleeping leaves the dreams of trees unfold; When woodland halls are green and cool, and wind is in the West, Come back to me! Come back to me, and say my land is best! entwife. When Summer warms the hanging fruit and burns the berry brown; 622 the two towers When straw is gold, and ear is white, and harvest comes to town; When honey spills, and apple swells, though wind be in the West, I’ll linger here beneath the Sun, because my land is best! ent. When Winter comes, the winter wild that hill and wood shall slay; When trees shall fall and starless night devour the sunless day; When wind is in the deadly East, then in the bitter rain I’ll look for thee, and call to thee; I’ll come to thee again! entwife. When Winter comes, and singing ends; when darkness falls at last; When broken is the barren bough, and light and labour past; I’ll look for thee, and wait for thee, until we meet again: Together we will take the road beneath the bitter rain! both. Together we will take the road that leads into the West, And far away will find a land where both our hearts may rest.

Even the most gentle summer breeze recirculated dust carrying alpha- and beta-emitting particles into the air. Every rain shower washed radiation from the clouds and flushed more long-lived nuclear isotopes into the ponds and streams.

Poem in October" It was my thirtieth year to heaven Woke to my hearing from harbour and neighbour wood And the mussel pooled and the heron Priested shore The morning beckon With water praying and call of seagull and rook And the knock of sailing boats on the net webbed wall Myself to set foot That second In the still sleeping town and set forth. My birthday began with the water- Birds and the birds of the winged trees flying my name Above the farms and the white horses And I rose In rainy autumn And walked abroad in a shower of all my days. High tide and the heron dived when I took the road Over the border And the gates Of the town closed as the town awoke. A springful of larks in a rolling Cloud and the roadside bushes brimming with whistling Blackbirds and the sun of October Summery On the hill's shoulder, Here were fond climates and sweet singers suddenly Come in the morning where I wandered and listened To the rain wringing Wind blow cold In the wood faraway under me. Pale rain over the dwindling harbour And over the sea wet church the size of a snail With its horns through mist and the castle Brown as owls But all the gardens Of spring and summer were blooming in the tall tales Beyond the border and under the lark full cloud. There could I marvel My birthday Away but the weather turned around. It turned away from the blithe country And down the other air and the blue altered sky Streamed again a wonder of summer With apples Pears and red currants And I saw in the turning so clearly a child's Forgotten mornings when he walked with his mother Through the parables Of sun light And the legends of the green chapels And the twice told fields of infancy That his tears burned my cheeks and his heart moved in mine. These were the woods the river and sea Where a boy In the listening Summertime of the dead whispered the truth of his joy To the trees and the stones and the fish in the tide. And the mystery Sang alive Still in the water and singingbirds. And there could I marvel my birthday Away but the weather turned around. And the true Joy of the long dead child sang burning In the sun. It was my thirtieth Year to heaven stood there then in the summer noon Though the town below lay leaved with October blood. O may my heart's truth Still be sung On this high hill in a year's turning.

Sometimes, in the evenings, a damp, gritty wind blew in the windows from Park Avenue, just as the rush hour traffic was thinning and the city was emptying for the night; it was rainy, trees leafing out, spring deepening into summer; and the forlorn cry of horns on the street, the dank smell of the wet pavement had an electricity about it, a sense of crowds and static, lonely secretaries and fat guys with bags of carry-out, everywhere the ungainly sadness of creatures pushing and struggling to live. For weeks, I’d been frozen, sealed-off; now, in the shower, I would turn up the water as hard as it would go and howl, silently. Everything was raw and painful and confusing and wrong and yet it was as if I’d been dragged from freezing water through a break in the ice, into sun and blazing cold.

Martin knew it was autumn again, for Dog ran into the house bringing wind and frost and a smell of apples turned to cider under trees. In dark clock-springs of hair, Dog fetched goldenrod, dust of farewell-summer, acorn-husk, hair of squirrel, feather of departed robin, sawdust from fresh-cut cordwood, and leaves like charcoals shaken from a blaze of maple trees. Dog jumped. Showers of brittle fern, blackberry vine, marsh-grass sprang over the bed where Martin shouted. No doubt, no doubt of it at all, this incredible beast was October!

Do you have any idea why you might be feeling better?” “No, not really,” I said curtly. Better wasn’t even the word for how I felt. There wasn’t a word for it. It was more that things too small to mention—laughter in the hall at school, a live gecko scurrying in a tank in the science lab—made me feel happy one moment and the next like crying. Sometimes, in the evenings, a damp, gritty wind blew in the windows from Park Avenue, just as the rush hour traffic was thinning and the city was emptying for the night; it was rainy, trees leafing out, spring deepening into summer; and the forlorn cry of horns on the street, the dank smell of the wet pavement had an electricity about it, a sense of crowds and static, lonely secretaries and fat guys with bags of carry-out, everywhere the ungainly sadness of creatures pushing and struggling to live. For weeks, I’d been frozen, sealed-off; now, in the shower, I would turn up the water as hard as it would go and howl, silently. Everything was raw and painful and confusing and wrong and yet it was as if I’d been dragged from freezing water through a break in the ice, into sun and blazing cold.

That summer morning in the Lower Downs began as usual for Reuben Pedley. He rose early to have breakfast with his mom before she left for work, a quiet breakfast because they were both still sleepy. Afterward, also as usual, he cleaned up their tiny kitchen while his mom moved faster and faster in her race against the clock (whose numerals she seemed quite unable to read before she’d had coffee and a shower). Then his mom was hugging him goodbye at the apartment door, where Reuben told her he loved her, which was true—and that she had no reason to worry about him, which was not. His

I love when he’s in these moods, this affectionate. Though it can be said of Gray that he’s this way all the time with me. He never has an off day. I’ve known every single day of our life together so far just what he’s thinking and feeling because he tells me, he shows me in so many different, lovely, sometimes depraved ways. Usually with my clothes off. Most often with his head between my legs. And that’s where I think this hot kiss is going—forget dinner, forget needing to shower off the busy workday. I’m wholly in this when I grip the back of his head and fall deeper into his mouth, moaning my protest when we part too soon. His forehead rests to mine. I spur him on. “Your sugar wife needs attention. You’ve neglected my needs all day, Grayson.” A growl comes out of his mouth and it delights me. Turns me on. Makes me wetter than a summer rain. “You know how hard that smart mouth of yours makes me. I’m about to put you on your knees.

Each of us has his own way of classifying humanity. To me, as a child, men and women fell naturally into two great divisions: those who had gardens and those who had only houses. Brick walls and pavements hemmed me in and robbed me of one of my birthrights; and to the fancy of childhood a garden was a paradise, and the people who had gardens were happy Adams and Eves walking in a golden mist of sunshine and showers, with green leaves and blue sky overhead, and blossoms springing at their feet; while those others, dispossessed of life's springs, summers, and autumns, appeared darkly entombed in shops and parlors where the year might as well have been a perpetual winter.

Do I get to choose what she commands you to do? Come on, let me, it’ll be fun.” Jai laughed humorlessly. “I said I don’t want her commanding me to do something asinine, kid.” Charlie’s grin disappeared as quickly as it had surfaced. “I told you not to call me, kid, Jinn boy. I’m what… two years younger than you, douchebag?” “Try five. And that’s only in physical years.” “What, you trying to say I’m not mature?” “Oh those socks you’re wearing definitely are. Have you heard of detergent? A shower? Hygiene?” “I shower, you militant, glorified fucking babysitter.” “Watch it, kid.” “Kid? I am this close to taking a swing at you, you overblown piece of-” “Oh for the love of God!” Ari cried, throwing her hands up, her head pounding. So much for their strained peace treaty. “Shut up. Shut up. Shut up!”Despite their matching glowers, both of them slammed their lips closed and glared at one another. Ari heaved a sigh of relief as she pulled a chilled can of soda out of the refrigerator. At least the soda still felt nice sliding down her throat. Not the same as an ice cold Coke on a blazing summer day but still nice. She took a refreshing swig and turned towards her male companions once again. Blasts of frost shot out from Jai’s eyes only to be met by the simmering black heat of Charlie’s angry gaze. Rolling her eyes and biting back the guilt that she was somehow responsible for the animosity between the only two people she could count on right now, Ari spilled into the chair between them and Jai slowly sunk back down into his. “So what will I command you?” she asked quietly, ignoring the way her fingers trembled as she played with the tab on her soda can. When she got no answer, she glanced up to see Jai’s face going red, the veins in his head throbbing. “Dude, what’s wrong?” Charlie asked quietly, looking at Ari in alarm. “Is he choking?” Ari’s heart flipped in her chest at the thought and she reached across the table to grab his arm. “Jai?” His eyes widened and he waved a large hand at his throat and mouth and then pointed at her. What the hell?! “Jesus Christ, he can’t talk?” Charlie asked incredulously. “Is this a joke?

I needed a slob summer. The machine was abused. Softness at the waist. Tremor of the hands. Bad tastes in the morning. A heaviness of muscle and bone, a tendency to sigh. Each time you wonder, Can you get it back? The good toughness and bounce and tirelessness, the weight down to a rawhide two oh five, a nasty tendency to sing during the morning shower, the conviction each day will contain wondrous things?

So, I am a refugee, and I get very lonely. Is it my fault if I do not look like an English girl and I do not talk like a Nigerian? Well who says an English girl must have skin as pale as the clouds that float across her summers? Who says a Nigerian girl must speak in fallen English, as if English had collided with Ibo, high in the upper atmosphere, and rained down into her mouth in a shower that half-drowns her and leaves her choking up sweet tales about the bright African colours and the taste of fried plantain? Not like a storyteller, but like a victim rescued from the flood, coughing up the colonial water from her lungs? Excuse me for learning your language properly. I am here to tell you a real story. I did not come to talk to you about the bright African colours. I am a born-again citizen of the developing world, and I will prove to you that the colour of my life is grey.

Summer came. For the book thief, everything was going nicely. For me, the sky was the color of Jews. When their bodies had finished scouring for gaps in the door, their souls rose up. When their fingernails had scratched at the wood and in some cases were nailed into it by the sheer force of desperation, their spirits came toward me, into my arms, and we climbed out of those shower facilities, onto the roof and up, into eternity’s certain breadth.

the fact is, our relationships to these corporations are not unambiguous. some memebers of negativland genuinely liked pepsi products. mca grew up loving star wars and didn't mind having his work sent all over the united states to all the "cool, underground magazines" they were marketing to--why would he? sam gould had a spiritual moment in the shower listening to a cd created, according to sophie wong, so that he would talk about tylenol with his independent artist friends--and he did. many of my friends' daughters will be getting american girl dolls and books as gifts well into the foreseeable future. some skateboarders in washington, dc, were asked to create an ad campaign for the east coast summer tour, and they all love minor threat--why not use its famous album cover? how about shilling for converse? i would have been happy to ten years ago. so what's really changed? the answer is that two important things have changed: who is ultimately accountable for veiled corporate campaigns that occasionally strive to obsfucate their sponsorship and who is requesting our participation in such campaigns. behind converse and nike sb is nike, a company that uses shit-poor labor policies and predatory marketing that effectively glosses over their shit-poor labor policies, even to an audience that used to know better. behind team ouch! was an underground-savvy brainreservist on the payroll of big pharma; behind the recent wave of street art in hip urban areas near you was omd worldwide on behalf of sony; behind your cool hand-stenciled vader shirt was lucasfilm; and behind a recent cool crafting event was toyota. no matter how you participated in these events, whether as a contributor, cultural producer, viewer, or even critic, these are the companies that profited from your attention.

On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous" i Tell me it was for the hunger & nothing less. For hunger is to give the body what it knows it cannot keep. That this amber light whittled down by another war is all that pins my hand to your chest. i You, drowning                         between my arms — stay. You, pushing your body                          into the river only to be left                          with yourself — stay. i I’ll tell you how we’re wrong enough to be forgiven. How one night, after backhanding mother, then taking a chainsaw to the kitchen table, my father went to kneel in the bathroom until we heard his muffled cries through the walls. And so I learned that a man, in climax, was the closest thing to surrender. i Say surrender. Say alabaster. Switchblade.                    Honeysuckle. Goldenrod. Say autumn. Say autumn despite the green                    in your eyes. Beauty despite daylight. Say you’d kill for it. Unbreakable dawn                    mounting in your throat. My thrashing beneath you                    like a sparrow stunned with falling. i Dusk: a blade of honey between our shadows, draining. i I wanted to disappear — so I opened the door to a stranger’s car. He was divorced. He was still alive. He was sobbing into his hands (hands that tasted like rust). The pink breast cancer ribbon on his keychain swayed in the ignition. Don’t we touch each other just to prove we are still here? I was still here once. The moon, distant & flickering, trapped itself in beads of sweat on my neck. I let the fog spill through the cracked window & cover my fangs. When I left, the Buick kept sitting there, a dumb bull in pasture, its eyes searing my shadow onto the side of suburban houses. At home, I threw myself on the bed like a torch & watched the flames gnaw through my mother’s house until the sky appeared, bloodshot & massive. How I wanted to be that sky — to hold every flying & falling at once. i Say amen. Say amend. Say yes. Say yes anyway. i In the shower, sweating under cold water, I scrubbed & scrubbed. i In the life before this one, you could tell two people were in love because when they drove the pickup over the bridge, their wings would grow back just in time. Some days I am still inside the pickup. Some days I keep waiting. i It’s not too late. Our heads haloed             with gnats & summer too early to leave any marks.             Your hand under my shirt as static intensifies on the radio.             Your other hand pointing your daddy’s revolver             to the sky. Stars falling one by one in the cross hairs.             This means I won’t be afraid if we’re already             here. Already more than skin can hold. That a body             beside a body must ma

Summer came. For the book thief, everything was going nicely. For me, the sky was the color of Jews. When their bodies had finished scouring for gaps in the door, their souls rose up. When their fingernails had scratched at the wood and in some cases were nailed into it by the sheer force of desperation, their spirits came toward me, into my arms, and we climbed out of those shower facilities, onto the roof and up, into eternity’s certain breadth. They just kept feeding me. Minute after minute. Shower after shower.

Picture a summer stolen whole from some coming-of-age film set in the small-town 1950s. This is none of Ireland's subtle seasons mixed for a connoisseur's palate, watercolor nuances within a pinch-sized range of cloud and soft rain; this is summer full-throated and extravagant in a hot pure silkscreen blue. This summer explodes on your tongue tasting of chewed blades of long grass, your own clean sweat, Marie biscuits with butter squirting through the holes and shaken bottles of red lemonade picnicked in tree houses. It tingles on your skin with BMX wind in your face, ladybug feet up your arm; it packs every breath full of mown grass and billowing wash lines; it chimes and fountains with birdcalls, bees, leaves and football-bounces and skipping-chants, One! two! three! This summer will never end. It starts every day with a shower of Mr. Whippy notes and your best friend's knock at the door, finishes it with long slow twilight and mothers silhouetted in doorways calling you to come in, through the bats shrilling among the black lace trees. This is Everysummer decked in all its best glory.

Permission Granted" You do not have to choose the bruised peach or misshapen pepper others pass over. You don't have to bury your grandmother's keys underneath her camellia bush as the will states. You don't need to write a poem about your grandfather coughing up his lung into that plastic tube—the machine's wheezing almost masking the kvetching sisters in their Brooklyn kitchen. You can let the crows amaze your son without your translation of their cries. You can lie so long under this summer shower your imprint will be left when you rise. You can be stupid and simple as a heifer. Cook plum and apple turnovers in the nude. Revel in the flight of birds without dreaming of flight. Remember the taste of raw dough in your mouth as you edged a pie. Feel the skin on things vibrate. Attune yourself. Close your eyes. Hum. Each beat of the world's pulse demands only that you feel it. No thoughts. Just the single syllable: Yes ... See the homeless woman following the tunings of a dead composer? She closes her eyes and sways with the subways. Follow her down, inside, where the singing resides.

That's the funny thing about children. When they were around, you wanted peace and quiet. A mere moment to yourself. You felt absolutely desperate to go more than three minutes without hearing the word Moooooooom echoing throughout the house. To go to the bathroom or - if luck was really on your side - to take an uninterrupted shower. Yet, when they were absent, no matter how infrequently that happened, it felt as though someone had amputated your limb and left a stinging open wound in its place. And you craved them like a cold beer on a blistering summer day.

I remember the only time I ever saw my mother cry. I was eating apricot pie. I remember how much I used to stutter. I remember the first time I saw television. Lucille Ball was taking ballet lessons. I remember Aunt Cleora who lived in Hollywood. Every year for Christmas she sent my brother and me a joint present of one book. I remember a very poor boy who had to wear his sister's blouse to school. I remember shower curtains with angel fish on them. I remember very old people when I was very young. Their houses smelled funny. I remember daydreams of being a singer all alone on a big stage with no scenery, just one spotlight on me, singing my heart out, and moving my audience to total tears of love and affection. I remember waking up somewhere once and there was a horse staring me in the face. I remember saying "thank you" in reply to "thank you" and then the other person doesn't know what to say. I remember how embarrassed I was when other children cried. I remember one very hot summer day I put ice cubes in my aquarium and all the fish died. I remember not understanding why people on the other side of the world didn't fall off.

I like to watch Peter when he doesn’t know I’m looking. I like to admire the straight line of his jaw, the curve of his cheekbone. There’s an openness to his face, an innocence--a certain kind of niceness. It’s the niceness that touches my heart the most. It’s Friday night at Gabe Rivera’s house after the lacrosse game. Our school won, so everyone is in very fine spirits, Peter most of all, because he scored the winning shot. He’s across the room playing poker with some of the guys from his team; he is sitting with his chair tipped back, his back against the wall. His hair is still wet from showering after the game. I’m on the couch with my friends Lucas Krapf and Pammy Subkoff, and they’re flipping through the latest issue of Teen Vogue, debating whether or not Pammy should get bangs. “What do you think, Lara Jean?” Pammy asks, running her fingers through her carrot-colored hair. Pammy is a new friend--I’ve gotten to know her because she dates Peter’s good friend Darrell. She has a face like a doll, round as a cake pan, and freckles dust her face and shoulders like sprinkles. “Um, I think bangs are a very big commitment and not to be decided on a whim. Depending on how fast your hair grows, you could be growing them out for a year or more. But if you’re serious, I think you should wait till fall, because it’ll be summer before you know it, and bangs in the summer can be sort of sticky and sweaty and annoying…” My eyes drift back to Peter, and he looks up and sees me looking at him, and raises his eyebrows questioningly. I just smile and shake my head. “So don’t get bangs?” My phone buzzes in my purse. It’s Peter. Do you want to go? No. Then why were you staring at me? Because I felt like it.

September 25 Why must I go about mourning? (Psalm 42:9) Dear believer, can you answer the above question? Can you find any reason why you are so often mourning instead of rejoicing? Why do you allow your mind to dwell on gloomy thoughts? Who told you that night will never end in day? Who told you that the winter of your discontent would continue from frost to frost and from snow, ice, and hail to even deeper snow and stronger storms of despair? Don’t you know that day dawns after night, showers displace drought, and spring and summer follow winter? Then, have hope! Hope forever, for God will not fail you! Charles H. Spurgeon

They say the world will end soon. They say that the nuclear weapons made, Due to fearing 'the other', Has become a curse, a plague, a scourge On those who made them Even more than those they were made to scare... And I wonder: Will the nuclear weapons be the cause of world’s end? Or will world’s end be caused by humanity’s fear, complicity, and submission? And if what they say is true, Before the world ends and before I die, I wish to drink one last cup of cardamom-flavored tea Taste one last fig, peach, or apricot, Smell a quince, Dip one last piece of bread In Palestinian thyme and olive oil… Before the world ends, I wish to smell a few pine needles, To breathe the smell of the first rain shower After a long, hot, and dry summer… Before the world ends and before I die, I wish to read one more book Out of the thousands of books that I still want to read… Before the world ends and before I die, I ask for one more spring To smell bunches of Iraqi narcissus flowers. I want to live one more autumn, To enjoy the magical colors Of the dying leaves on the trees As they challenge death with beauty Right before falling on the grounds of indifference… But my biggest wish before I die is For my death not to be the end of the world… [Original poem published in Arabic on October 13 at ahewar.org]

On a riverbank in the cool of a summer evening two women struggled under a shower of silvery blue. They never expected to see each other again in this world and at the moment couldn’t care less. But there on a summer night surrounded by bluefern they did something together appropriately and well. A pateroller passing would have sniggered to see two throw-away people, two lawless outlaws—a slave and a barefoot whitewoman with unpinned hair—wrapping a ten-minute-old baby in the rags they wore. But no pateroller came and no preacher. The water sucked and swallowed itself beneath them. There was nothing to disturb them at their work. So they did it appropriately and well.

Where, where all the summer dogs leaping like dolphins in the wind-braided and unbraided tides of what? Where lightning smell of Green Machine or trolley? Did the wine remember? It did not? Or seemed not, anyway. Somewhere, a book said once, all the talk ever talked, all the songs ever sung, still lived, had vibrated way out in space and if you could travel to Far Centauri you could hear George Washington talking in his sleep or Caesar surprised at the knife in his back. So much for sounds. What about light then? All things, once seen, they didn't just die, that couldn't be. It must be then that somewhere, searching the world, perhaps in the dripping multiboxed honeycombs where light was an amber sap stored by pollen-fired bees, or in the thirty thousand lenses of the noon dragonfly's hemmed skull you might find all the colors and sights of the world in any one year. Or pour one single drop of this dandelion wine beneath a microscope and perhaps the entire world of July Fourth would firework out in Vesuvius showers. This he would have to believe. And yet... looking here at this bottle which by its number signalized the day when Colonel Freeleigh had stumbled and fallen six feet into the earth, Douglas could not find so much as a gram of dark sediment, not a speck of the great flouring buffalo dust, not a flake of sulphur from the guns at Shiloh...

(From Chapter 9: Hearts and Gizzards) The heat of summer has come without warning. One day it was still cold spring, with gusting showers and chilly white clouds remote above the glacial blue of the lake; then suddenly the daffodils withered, the tulips burst open and turned inside out as if yawning, then dropped their petals. Cesspool vapours rise from back yards and gutters, and a mist of mosquitoes condenses around every pedestrian’s head. At noon the air shimmers like the space above a heated griddle, and the lake glares, its margin stinking faintly of dead fish and frog spawn. At night Simon’s lamp is besieged by moths, which flutter around him, the soft touch of their wings like the brushing of silken lips.

DEATH’S DIARY: THE PARISIANS Summer came. For the book thief, everything was going nicely. For me, the sky was the color of Jews. When their bodies had finished scouring for gaps in the door, their souls rose up. When their fingernails had scratched at the wood and in some cases were nailed into it by the sheer force of desperation, their spirits came toward me, into my arms, and we climbed out of those shower facilities, onto the roof and up, into eternity’s certain breadth. They just kept feeding me. Minute after minute. Shower after shower. I’ll never forget the first day in Auschwitz, the first time in Mauthausen. At that second place, as time wore on, I also picked them up from the bottom of the great cliff, when their escapes fell awfully awry. There were broken bodies and dead, sweet hearts. Still, it was better than the gas. Some of them I caught when they were only halfway down. Saved you, I’d think, holding their souls in midair as the rest of their being—their physical shells—plummeted to the earth. All of them were light, like the cases of empty walnuts. Smoky sky in those places. The smell like a stove, but still so cold. I shiver when I remember—as I try to de-realize it. I blow warm air into my hands, to heat them up. But it’s hard to keep them warm when the souls still shiver. God. I always say that name when I think of it. God. Twice, I speak it. I say His name in a futile attempt to understand. “But it’s not your job to understand.” That’s me who answers. God never says anything. You think you’re the only one he never answers? “Your job is to …” And I stop listening to me, because to put it bluntly, I tire me. When I start thinking like that, I become so exhausted, and I don’t have the luxury of indulging fatigue. I’m compelled to continue on, because although it’s not true for every person on earth, it’s true for the vast majority—that death waits for no man—and if he does, he doesn’t usually wait very long. On June 23, 1942, there was a group of French Jews in a German prison, on Polish soil. The first person I took was close to the door, his mind racing, then reduced to pacing, then slowing down, slowing down …. Please believe me when I tell you that I picked up each soul that day as if it were newly born. I even kissed a few weary, poisoned cheeks. I listened to their last, gasping cries. Their vanishing words. I watched their love visions and freed them from their fear. I took them all away, and if ever there was a time I needed distraction, this was it. In complete desolation, I looked at the world above. I watched the sky as it turned from silver to gray to the color of rain. Even the clouds were trying to get away. Sometimes I imagined how everything looked above those clouds, knowing without question that the sun was blond, and the endless atmosphere was a giant blue eye. They were French, they were Jews, and they were you.

There’s no way around August. In the sweltering dog days of summer in the deep South mornings haze with humidity that doesn’t end with the coming of dark. Cuts don’t heal. Grudges fester. Mold grows on damp sheets and dogs don’t bother to come out from under the house and bark. What would be the point? In more cultivated times people closed the shutters midday and sallied forth when the worst was over. The river is a different story. And if you are fortunate enough to have a dock with hammocks hanging under it and boats tied at the end of it and all of Jericho waiting to enfold you, not to mention the Perseid meteor showers to keep you company at night, why would you be anywhere else? Especially if you have peaches.

I unpacked and took a shower, trying to wash the road and a little of my mingled grief and anger off me. Rachel had a point, but was it wrong to want a single, peaceful evening? The smell of roasting hens, peppery and succulent, wafted up the stairs as I got dressed, like a sensory argument for respite. Birchie would serve them with fat slices of the summer’s first heirloom tomatoes from the back garden and her famous cornbread. To make it, she saved bacon drippings in a coffee can by the stove, and she’d put some of that grease into the cast-iron skillet and set it in the oven. She’d make batter while the rendered fat got so hot that it was close to smoking. The sizzle of the batter landing in that pan was the kitchen soundtrack of my youth.

There's no such thing as witches. But there used to be. It used to be the air was so thick with magic you could taste it on your tongue like ash. Witches lurked in every tangled wood and waited at every midnight-crossroad with sharp-toothed smiles. They conversed with dragons on lonely mountaintops and rode rowan-wood brooms across full moons; they charmed the stars to dance beside them on the summer solstice and rode to battle with familiars at their heels. It used to be witches were wild as crows and fearless as foxes, because magic blazed bright and the night was theirs. But then came the plague and the purges. The dragons were slain and the witches were burned and the night belonged to men with torches and crosses. Witching isn’t all gone, of course. My grandmother, Mama Mags, says they can’t ever kill magic because it beats like a great red heartbeat on the other side of everything, that if you close your eyes you can feel it thrumming beneath the soles of your feet, thumpthumpthump. It’s just a lot better-behaved than it used to be. Most respectable folk can’t even light a candle with witching, these days, but us poor folk still dabble here and there. Witch-blood runs thick in the sewers, the saying goes. Back home every mama teaches her daughters a few little charms to keep the soup-pot from boiling over or make the peonies bloom out of season. Every daddy teaches his sons how to spell ax-handles against breaking and rooftops against leaking. Our daddy never taught us shit, except what a fox teaches chickens — how to run, how to tremble, how to outlive the bastard — and our mama died before she could teach us much of anything. But we had Mama Mags, our mother’s mother, and she didn’t fool around with soup-pots and flowers. The preacher back home says it was God’s will that purged the witches from the world. He says women are sinful by nature and that magic in their hands turns naturally to rot and ruin, like the first witch Eve who poisoned the Garden and doomed mankind, like her daughter’s daughters who poisoned the world with the plague. He says the purges purified the earth and shepherded us into the modern era of Gatling guns and steamboats, and the Indians and Africans ought to be thanking us on their knees for freeing them from their own savage magics. Mama Mags said that was horseshit, and that wickedness was like beauty: in the eye of the beholder. She said proper witching is just a conversation with that red heartbeat, which only ever takes three things: the will to listen to it, the words to speak with it, and the way to let it into the world. The will, the words, and the way. She taught us everything important comes in threes: little pigs, bill goats gruff, chances to guess unguessable names. Sisters. There wer ethree of us Eastwood sisters, me and Agnes and Bella, so maybe they'll tell our story like a witch-tale. Once upon a time there were three sisters. Mags would like that, I think — she always said nobody paid enough attention to witch-tales and whatnot, the stories grannies tell their babies, the secret rhymes children chant among themselves, the songs women sing as they work. Or maybe they won't tell our story at all, because it isn't finished yet. Maybe we're just the very beginning, and all the fuss and mess we made was nothing but the first strike of the flint, the first shower of sparks. There's still no such thing as witches. But there will be.

into the main part of the store. Off to get Kendal, I mouthed to Celine, and she nodded. I stepped out into the September afternoon. Behind me, Eighty-ninth Street stretched several blocks to Riverside Park, a favorite place of mine and Kendal’s. Just ahead the intersection at Broadway sparkled with a steady stream of cars and our neighboring retailers’ windows. A man walking his dog nodded a wordless hello, and a mom with a baby in a stroller bent to pop a pacifier back into her unhappy child’s mouth. A delivery truck double-parked and the car behind it honked its disproval. The air held only a hint that summer was waning. September used to be my favorite month. I liked the way it sweetly bade the summer pastels away and showered the Yard’s shelves with auburn, mocha, and every shade of red. September brought in the serious quilters, those who loved spending

Ernst of Edelsheim I'll tell the story, kissing   This white hand for my pains: No sweeter heart, nor falser   E'er filled such fine, blue veins. I'll sing a song of true love,   My Lilith dear! to you; Contraria contrariis—   The rule is old and true. The happiest of all lovers   Was Ernst of Edelsheim; And why he was the happiest,   I'll tell you in my rhyme. One summer night he wandered   Within a lonely glade, And, couched in moss and moonlight,   He found a sleeping maid. The stars of midnight sifted   Above her sands of gold; She seemed a slumbering statue,   So fair and white and cold. Fair and white and cold she lay   Beneath the starry skies; Rosy was her waking   Beneath the Ritter's eyes. He won her drowsy fancy,   He bore her to his towers, And swift with love and laughter   Flew morning's purpled hours. But when the thickening sunbeams   Had drunk the gleaming dew, A misty cloud of sorrow   Swept o'er her eyes' deep blue. She hung upon the Ritter's neck, S he wept with love and pain, She showered her sweet, warm kisses   Like fragrant summer rain. "I am no Christian soul," she sobbed,   As in his arms she lay; "I'm half the day a woman,   A serpent half the day. "And when from yonder bell-tower   Rings out the noonday chime, Farewell! farewell forever,   Sir Ernst of Edelsheim!" "Ah! not farewell forever!"   The Ritter wildly cried, "I will be saved or lost with thee,   My lovely Wili-Bride!" Loud from the lordly bell-tower   Rang out the noon of day, And from the bower of roses   A serpent slid away. But when the mid-watch moonlight   Was shimmering through the grove, He clasped his bride thrice dowered   With beauty and with love. The happiest of all lovers   Was Ernst of Edelsheim— His true love was a serpent   Only half the time!

What about the backyard stuff?” he asked. “What about it?” “Is it okay if I use it, too?” “Oh, sure. The equipment is in a metal shed in the back. Just help yourself. It’s not locked or anything. And if you want company, just let me know. I’d be happy to play with you.” Did I just say that? I did not just say that. Like we were six years old and heading for a sandbox. He was grinning again, like he thought it was funny or stupid or I was having a Tiffany moment. “I didn’t mean play with you exactly,” I said. “I meant…you know, keep you company so you don’t feel awkward…you know, like I exercised with you.” “I’ll be okay alone in the backyard.” He stepped off the treadmill. “I’m going to go shower.” He waited a heartbeat, like he expected me to say I’d be happy to keep him company in the shower, too. Fortunately, my brain finally kicked in, and I kept my mouth shut. I watched him walk out of the room. I thought I’d known everything that would be involved in having a baseball player living with us for the summer. I was discovering that I didn’t have a clue.

Chang came in five minutes later, in the same jeans but a fresh T-shirt, her hair still inky with water from the shower. Her own jacket was pulled down on one side, by her own Smith. Like any ex-cop she looked around, the full 360, seven or eight separate snapshots, and then she moved through the room with plenty of energy, powered by what looked like enthusiasm, or maybe some kind of shared euphoria at their mutual survival through the night. She slid in alongside him. He said, “Did you sleep?” She said, “I must have. I didn’t think I was going to.” “You didn’t go meet the train.” “He’s a prisoner, according to you. And that’s the best-case scenario.” “I’m only guessing.” “It’s a reasonable assumption.” “Did you see the woman in 203?” “I thought she was hard to explain. Dressed in black, she could have been an investor or a fund manager or something else deserving of the junior executive routine. Her face and hair were right. And she has a key to the company gym. That’s for sure. But dressed in white? She looked like she was going to a garden party in Monte Carlo. At seven o’clock in the morning. Who does that?” “Is it a fashion thing? Someone’s idea of summer clothes?” “I sincerely hope not.

They say the world will end soon. They say that the nuclear weapons made, Due to fearing ‘the other’, Have become a curse, a plague, a scourge On those who made them Even more than those they were made to scare... And I wonder: Will the nuclear weapons be the cause of the world’s end? Or will the world’s end be caused by humanity’s fear, complicity, and submission? And if what they say is true, Before the world ends and before I die, I wish to drink one last cup of cardamom-flavored tea Taste one last fig, peach, or apricot, Smell a quince, Dip one last piece of bread In Palestinian thyme and olive oil… Before the world ends, I wish to smell a few pine needles, To breathe the smell of the first rain shower After a long, hot, and dry summer… Before the world ends and before I die, I wish to read one more book Out of the thousands of books that I still want to read… Before the world ends and before I die, I ask for one more spring To smell bunches of Iraqi narcissus flowers. I want to live one more autumn, To enjoy the magical colors Of the dying leaves on the trees As they challenge death with beauty Right before falling on the grounds of indifference… But my biggest wish before I die is For my death not to be the end of the world… [Original poem published in Arabic by ahewar.org on October 13, 2022]

Summer days and junior year, you are my sunshine that brightens up my full moon; we are going to soar together, we will not need to wish upon a star because our dreams will, at last, become true. There may be dark clouds overhead, and times of rain. This may be there showering upon us, but love still grows, we will not care, we will be there looking at that view that goes on for miles. Sometimes we will have to cope with the rainfall that wants to keep us apart. Sometimes I think that I am going to lose my way to you. While the gray storms end up taking our joyful colors away once more. Upon the clear, we stand together at last… arm in arm, and hand and hand, we are laced, and we embrace one another. The colors of red, blue, and pink are the sky once more. Plus, all along you were there, this time we share. The colors begin setting the mood and light ones more. All the vivid gold sights with the feelings of being united and that will be us as a pair. The many stars shine bright because we are going to be there all night, holding on to what we had that night. I used to bite my lips, thinking about that gold band, and the sparkly rock on top. You can make me feel like royalty; yes, I will be your queen ruler. Maybe someday all this will not be a fantasy and the dreams will come true when we look at a different view, just me and you.

We came to the city because we wished to live haphazardly, to reach for only the least realistic of our desires, and to see if we could not learn what our failures had to teach, and not, when we came to live, discover that we had never died. We wanted to dig deep and suck out all the marrow of life, to be overworked and reduced to our last wit. And if our bosses proved mean, why then we’d evoke their whole and genuine meanness afterward over vodka cranberries and small batch bourbons. And if our drinking companions proved to be sublime then we would stagger home at dawn over the Old City cobblestones, into hot showers and clean shirts, and press onward until dusk fell again. For the rest of the world, it seemed to us, had somewhat hastily concluded that it was the chief end of man to thank God it was Friday and pray that Netflix would never forsake them. Still we lived frantically, like hummingbirds; though our HR departments told us that our commitments were valuable and our feedback was appreciated, our raises would be held back another year. Like gnats we pestered Management— who didn’t know how to use the Internet, whose only use for us was to set up Facebook accounts so they could spy on their children, or to sync their iPhones to their Outlooks, or to explain what tweets were and more importantly, why— which even we didn’t know. Retire! we wanted to shout. We ha Get out of the way with your big thumbs and your senior moments and your nostalgia for 1976! We hated them; we wanted them to love us. We wanted to be them; we wanted to never, ever become them. Complexity, complexity, complexity! We said let our affairs be endless and convoluted; let our bank accounts be overdrawn and our benefits be reduced. Take our Social Security contributions and let it go bankrupt. We’d been bankrupt since we’d left home: we’d secure our own society. Retirement was an afterlife we didn’t believe in and that we expected yesterday. Instead of three meals a day, we’d drink coffee for breakfast and scavenge from empty conference rooms for lunch. We had plans for dinner. We’d go out and buy gummy pad thai and throat-scorching chicken vindaloo and bento boxes in chintzy, dark restaurants that were always about to go out of business. Those who were a little flush would cover those who were a little short, and we would promise them coffees in repayment. We still owed someone for a movie ticket last summer; they hadn’t forgotten. Complexity, complexity. In holiday seasons we gave each other spider plants in badly decoupaged pots and scarves we’d just learned how to knit and cuff links purchased with employee discounts. We followed the instructions on food and wine Web sites, but our soufflés sank and our baked bries burned and our basil ice creams froze solid. We called our mothers to get recipes for old favorites, but they never came out the same. We missed our families; we were sad to be rid of them. Why shouldn’t we live with such hurry and waste of life? We were determined to be starved before we were hungry. We were determined to be starved before we were hungry. We were determined to decrypt our neighbors’ Wi-Fi passwords and to never turn on the air-conditioning. We vowed to fall in love: headboard-clutching, desperate-texting, hearts-in-esophagi love. On the subways and at the park and on our fire escapes and in the break rooms, we turned pages, resolved to get to the ends of whatever we were reading. A couple of minutes were the day’s most valuable commodity. If only we could make more time, more money, more patience; have better sex, better coffee, boots that didn’t leak, umbrellas that didn’t involute at the slightest gust of wind. We were determined to make stupid bets. We were determined to be promoted or else to set the building on fire on our way out. We were determined to be out of our minds.

In Hiding - coming summer of 2020 WAYNE ANTHONY SEEKS REDEMPTION FROM A BAD DAY - Although warned about getting the stitches wet, he believed a hot shower was the only road to his redemption. Experienced taught him the best way to relieve the tightness in his lower back was by standing beneath the near-scalding water. Dropping the rest of his clothing, he turned the shower on full blast. The hot water rushed from the showerhead filling the tiny room with steam, instantly the small mirror on the medicine cabinet fogged up. The man quietly pulled the shower curtain back and entered the shower stall without a sound. Years of acting as another’s shadow had trained him to live soundlessly. The hot water cascaded over his body as the echo from the pounding water deadened slightly. Grabbing the sample sized soap, he pulled the paper off and tossed the wrapper over the curtain rail. Wayne rubbed the clean smelling block until his large hands disappeared beneath the lather. He ignored the folded washcloth, opting to use his hands across his body. Gently he cleaned the injury allowing the slime of bacterial soap to remove the residual of the rust-colored betadine. All that remained when he finished was the pale orange smear from the antiseptic. This scar was not the only mar to his body. The water cascaded down hard muscles making rivulets throughout the thatches of dark hair. He raised his arms gingerly as he washed beneath them; the tight muscles of his abdomen glistened beneath the torrent of water. Opening a bottle of shampoo-slash-conditioner, he applied a dab then ran his hands across his scalp. Finally, the tension in his square jaw had eased, making his handsome face more inviting. The cords of his neck stood out as he rinsed the shampoo from his hair. It coursed down his chest leading down to his groin where the scented wash caught in his pelvic hair. Wayne's body was one of perfection for any woman; if that was, she could ignore the mutilations. Knife injuries left their mark with jagged white lines. Most of these, he had doctored himself; his lack of skill resulted in crude scars. The deepest one, undulated along the left side of his abdomen, that one had required the art of a surgeon. Dropping his arms, he surrenders himself to the pelting deluge from the shower. The steamy water cascaded down his body, pulling the soap toward the drain. Across his back, it slid down several small indiscernible pockmarks left by gunshot wounds, the true extent of their damage far beneath his skin. Slowly the suds left his body, snaking down his muscular legs. It slithered down the scars on his left knee, the result of replacement surgery after a thug took a bat to it. Wayne stood until the hot water cooled, and ran translucent over his body. Finally, he washes the impact of the long day from his mind and spirit.

Sean was watching me, though. And Sean wiped the bryozoa residue from his hand across my stomach. This was the third time a boy had ever touched my bare tummy, and I’d had enough. Through gritted teeth, like any extra movement might spread the bryozoa further across my skin, I told him, “I like you less than I did.” I bailed over the side of the boat-the side opposite where the bryozoa returned to its native habitat. Deep in the warm water, I scrubbed at my tummy with both hands. A combination of bryozoa waste and Sean germs: it was the best of times, it was the worst of times. Leaning toward worst, because now I had slime on my hands. Or maybe this was psychosomatic. Holding my hands open in front of me in the water, I didn’t see any slime. I rubbed my hands together anyway. Something dove into the water beside me in a rush of bubbles. I came up for air. Sean surfaced, too, tossing sparkling drops of water from his hair. “You still like me a lot, though, right?” “No prob. Green is the new black.” Giving up on getting clean, I swam a few strokes back toward the platform to get out again. What I needed was a shower with chlorinated water and disinfectant soap. I might need to bubble out my belly button with hydrogen peroxide. “What if I made it up to you?” He splashed close behind me. “What if I helped you get clean? We don’t want you dirty.” He moved both hands around me under the water, up and down across my tummy. It was the fourth time a boy had touched my tummy! And it was very awkward. He bobbed so close behind me that I had a hard time treading water without kicking him. I needed to choose between flirting and breathing. Cameron and my brother leaned over the side of the boat and gaped at us, which didn’t help matters. I’d been afraid of this. Flirting with Sean was no fun if the other boys acted like we were lepers. Well, okay, it was fun, but not as fun as it was supposed to be. Obviously I would need to give McGullicuddy the little dolphin talk. I wasn’t sure I could do this with Cameron-Cameron and I didn’t have heart-to-heart convos-but I might need to make an exception, if he continued to watch us like we were a dirty movie on Pay-Per-View (which I’d also seen a lot of. Life with boys). BEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE- Sean and I started and turned toward the boat. Still behind the steering wheel, Adam had his chin in his hand and his elbow on the horn. -EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE Damn it! I turned around to face Sean and gave him a wry smile, but he’d already taken his hands away from my tummy. The horn really ruined the mood. -EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE Sean hauled himself up onto the platform. I followed close behind him, and (glee!) he put out a hand to help me. Cameron and my brother yelled at Adam. -EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEP. “Oh!” Adam said as if he’d had no idea he’d been laying on the horn. He looked at his elbow like it belonged to someone else. I was in the boat with Sean now, and he was still holding my hand. Or, maybe I was still clinging to his hand, but this is a question of semantics. In any case, I pulled him by the hand past the other boys to the bow. We didn’t have privacy. There was no privacy on a wakeboarding boat. At least we had the boat’s windshield between us and the others. As I turned to sit down on the bench, I stuck out my tongue at Adam behind the windshield. He crossed his eyes at me.

I am so sorry, Your Majesty. He did not mean to break protocol.” I glanced around the crowd once, before lowering my gaze to smile at the pair before me. I then surprised everyone by dropping to my knees so I could be on the same level as them. “You need not worry for your son,” I said. “I know the difference between harm and a happy little boy.” I then kissed both of them on the cheek, before pulling my hand back and getting to my feet. “Go!” I shouted out to the crowd. “Go, have fun, and be merry. This is the summer festival, and we will know nothing but joy!” Noises and laughter started again, and I felt the warmth and love that I had showered out being returned to me. A true leader knows that respect and love are not given freely. You must earn the respect and love of your people, and I was determined to be a queen worthy of both.

But her eyes would blaze like stars when Harold read poetry to her, and I fancy myself that she thought over-much for her years; that she had—what do they call it ?—genius; and that it was only because she was silent that people fancied her simple. It was odd: those two children led such simple, ordinary lives: rising with the sun; eating food of the plainest; always in the open air; rained on by summer showers; blown on by autumn winds; seeing nothing except the animals and the birds on the farms, and having no books except their Bible and their 'Pilgrim's Progress,' and the plays of a man they called Shakspeare:—and yet there was something noble and uncommon about them; and they seemed always to be hearing such

One quiet, star-lit summer night, while on picket between Bolivar and Toone's, I had the good fortune to witness the flight of the largest and most brilliant meteor I ever have seen. It was a little after midnight, and I was standing alone at my post, looking, listening, and thinking. Suddenly there came a loud, rushing, roaring sound, like a passenger train close by, going at full speed, and there in the west was a meteor! Its flight was from the southwest to the northeast, parallel with the horizon, and low down. Its head, or body, looked like a huge ball of fire, and it left behind a long, immense tail of brilliant white, that lighted up all the western heavens. While yet in full view, it exploded with a crash like a near-by clap of thunder, there was a wide, glittering shower of sparks,—and then silence and darkness. The length of time it was visible could not have been more than a few seconds, but it was a most extraordinary spectacle.

In the sultry summer months, when the windows are closed to keep in the air conditioning, wait until the evening when it cools down. Be sure to open the windows after a summer shower for a delightful scent. If

Ah, summer! The season when worry steps aside, delight takes over, and every day is as good as the amount of time spent outdoors. It's a chance to swim past the breakers, take outdoor showers, hold court from a pool float, or rely on nothing but your wits, a pineapple, rum, and a blender to make the most of an afternoon. When the only imperative is to unwind, unplug, and open up to a day of possibilities, you know you're going to have fun.

Hailey doubted Poseidon appreciated the conversion of his palace into a school, but he wasn’t in a position to complain considering he, and every other god, was dead. And had been for sixteen centuries now—compliments to humans killing them in the Great Battle. Although Hailey supposed you could say they had lived on—at least in a small way—because when they’d died, their powers had showered from the sky to the human race, turning everyone into demigods. And since then, the gods’ powers have passed down through each generation, so every human in the world has a power. The cold touch of a raindrop sliding down Hailey’s cheek had her gazing up at a grey cloud encroaching on the sun. She flicked her hand at it, watching the cloud speed away out of sight, leaving the sky azure blue. Hailey was a Zeus. The only Zeus in over a century, to be exact, which meant her powers came with certain expectations. Her mind flashed back to the last Powers class she’d had before the summer holidays... Hailey stood in a grassy field, the sweet and earthy scent of rain hanging in the air. Her teacher, Mrs Pritchet, loomed behind her with the rest of her class. But Hailey was too busy focusing her powers to remember they were there. Warmth flowed through her fingertips towards the black sky, and a rope-shaped tornado whirled to life fifty yards ahead of her.

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Because I really did believe he was coming. If I didn’t, would I have taken extra care with my hair that morning? In the shower, would I have shaved my legs not once but twice, just to be safe? Would I have put on that new dress and worn those heels that made my feet hurt if I truly didn’t believe he was coming?

Steps Beach has, quite possibly, the most beautiful approach of any beach in the world. You descend forty-three steps into sand dunes covered by rosa rugosa, which in the height of summer blooms with pink and white flowers. Dionis Beach is where Richie is found asleep in his car in this novel. In the book, I say that Dionis has public showers—this is fiction. It does not have showers.

You two smell like you showered in Patrón,” I said. I dug in my center console for a water bottle. “Drink some water.” “Water?” Leigh said. “That stuff that killed everyone on the Titanic?” Mom burst into giggles.

The Tragedy of Happiness Happiness can only occur without premeditation; it is the salamander revealed curling under an upturned rock; the early morning dew beading on your Hydrangeas; the scent of night jasmine halting your hurried walk; a shaft of sunlight illuminating dust swirling from a book of poetry; a recovered childhood memory when you touch a family photo; an undulating crescendo of frogs serenading the night; that summer sun shower that catches you without an umbrella; the clarity of the country night sky when you stop your car to pee. The tragedy of happiness is that you can only feel it the very moment it's vanished and resides solely in memory.

There came time and then a slight pang at the thought of stepping off the earth that he loved so deeply, the work of the land and the beasts that made that work but also the small daily beauties of life, a summer shower on a hot day, snow whirling over the land in a flail of wind, the long spreads of geese across equinox skies, the workings of his own mind within but also around all such things as he made sense of his own works and questions and doubts.

I’m sure he’ll be average in every way. I’m going to hop in the shower and get ready.” “I don’t want him to be average, either!” she called out as I walked to the kitchen to put the cleaning supplies away. “Well, he has to be something! And unless you want to meet him in that, I suggest you go get ready, too.” I looked pointedly at her fuzzy socks and holey sweats, and reminded her, “It’s summer.” “Don’t knock the outfit because you’re not as comfortable as I am.” “You don’t look comfortable, you look hot.” Taylor lifted an eyebrow suggestively. “Why, thank you.” I

Every day in summer, trees release about 29 tons of oxygen into the air per square mile of forest. A person breathes in nearly 2 pounds of oxygen a day, so that's the daily requirement for about ten thousand people. Every walk in the forest is like taking a shower in oxygen. But only during the day. Trees manufacture large amounts of carbohydrates not only to lay them down as wood but also to satisfy their hunger. Trees use carbohydrates as fuel, just as we do, and when they do, they convert sugar into energy and carbon dioxide. During the day, this doesn't affect the air much because after all the additions and subtractions, there is still that surplus oxygen I just mentioned. At night, however, the trees don't photosynthesize, and so they don't break down carbon dioxide. Quite the opposite, in fact. In the darkness, it's all about using carbohydrates, burning sugar in the cells' power-generating stations, and releasing carbon dioxide. But don't worry, you won't suffocate if you take a nighttime ramble! A steady movement of air through the forest ensures that all the gases are well mixed at all times, and so the drop in oxygen near the ground is not particularly noticeable.

When I first started working for Larry Summers, then chief economist at the World Bank, he was married to a tax attorney, Vicki. He was very supportive of Vicki’s career and used to urge her to “bill like a boy.” His view was that the men considered any time they spent thinking about an issue—even time in the shower—as billable hours. His wife and her female colleagues, however, would decide that they were not at their best on a given day and discount hours they spent at their desks to be fair to the client. Which lawyers were more valuable to that firm? To make his point, Larry told them the story of a renowned Harvard Law School professor who was asked by a judge to itemize a bill. The professor responded that he could not because he was so often thinking about two things at once.

the orchard laid; When shower and Sun upon the Earth with fragrance fill the air, I’ll linger here, and will not come, because my land is fair. ENT. When Summer lies upon the world, and in a noon of gold Beneath the roof of sleeping leaves the dreams of trees unfold; When woodland halls are green and cool, and wind is in the West, Come back to

Hypothetically possible Hypothetically possible Reaching for the impossible Like darkness that seeks the light Like Olaf that dreams of Summer But hey, Olaf gets his personal snow shower in the end Something impossible might just be hypothetically possible If we hold our judgement If we dare enough to try If we dare enough to overpower our inner darkness called, Fear

You can’t go.” “Give me a reason why I shouldn’t.” “Because what was the point in anything if you just disappear forever?” she hissed, splaying her arms. “The point in what, Celaena?” How could he be so calm when she was so frantic? “The point in Skull’s Bay, and the point in getting me that music, and the point in… the point in telling Arobynn that you’d forgive him if he never hurt me again.” “You said you didn’t care what I thought. Or what I did. Or if I died, If I’m not mistaken.” “I lied! And you know I lied, you stupid bastard!” He laughed quietly. “You want to know how I spent this summer?” She went still. He ran a hand through his brown hair. “I spent every single day fighting the urge to slit Arobynn’s throat. And he knew I wanted to kill him. The moment I woke up after he beat me, I realized I had to leave. Because I was going to kill him if I didn’t. But I couldn’t.” He studied her face. “Not until you came back. Not until I knew you were all right—until I saw that you were safe.” Breathing became very, very hard. “He knew that, too,” Sam went on. “So he decided to exploit it. He didn’t recommend me for missions. Instead, he made me help Lysandra and Clarisse. He made me escort them around the city on picnics and parties. It became a game between the two of us—how much of his horseshit I could take before I snapped. But we both knew he’d always have the winning hand. He’d always have you. Still. I spent every day this summer hoping you’d come back in one piece. More than that—I hoped you’d come back and take revenge for what he’d done to you.” But she hadn’t. She’d come back and let Arobynn shower her with gifts. “And now that you’re fine, Celaena, now that you’ve paid off your debt, I can’t stay in Rifthold. Not after all the things he’s done to us.” “Please don’t go.” “You’ll be fine without me. You always have been.” Maybe once, but not now. “How can I convince you to stay?” “You can’t.” She threw down the torch. “Do you want me to beg, is that it?” “No—never.” “Then tell me—” “What more can I say?” he exploded, his whisper rough and harsh. “I’ve already told you everything—I’ve already told you that if I stay here, if I have to live with Arobynn, I’ll snap his damned neck.” “But why? Why can’t you let it go?” He grabbed her shoulders and shook her. “Because I love you!” Her mouth fell open. “I love you,” he repeated, shaking her again. “I have for years. And he hurt you and made me watch because he’s always known how I felt, too. But if I asked you to pick, you’d choose Arobynn, and I. Can’t. Take. It.” The only sounds were their breathing, an uneven beat against the rushing of the sewer water. “You’re a damned idiot,” she breathed. “You’re a moron and an ass and a damned idiot.” He looked like she had hit him. But she went on, and grasped both sides of his face, “Because I’d pick you.” And then she kissed him.

Kissing Ellie was like putting on glasses after a lifetime of squinting at far-away shapes. Like the first gasp of air after cliff diving into the ocean. Like a cold shower after a hard summer workout. Like a fucking reward.

I’m taking a shower,” I announce. “And when I get out, you and I are going to have a little talk about how fucking crazy you are.” Her cheeks redden. “I’m sorry, okay? I already admitted I overreacted. ” “You think?” I hop on one foot, then the other, to peel off my disgusting socks. “I’m serious. I’m not done being angry at you, so you better be waiting for me in my room when I’m out of the shower.” “What are you going to do, spank me?” I growl. “Don’t fucking tempt me, babe.” “Gross,” Summer pipes up. “Please don’t discuss your BDSM sex games in front of your sister.” I point my finger at her. “Not. Another. Word.” I glance at Tucker, the traitor who was getting so much joy out of my misery. “Please escort Summer to Garrett’s room and figure out a way to lock her inside it.

With summer nearly upon the Pacific Northwest, I couldn't expect too many more days like this one. There was no better way to spend a late-spring morning than at the arboretum, the beautiful foliage surrounding me bringing peace and good memories. The trees around me rustled, unsettling dew from last night's rain and showering the ground below with rainbow specks of water as sunlight filtered through.

The Cart Blanche is an offer in black poetry of my name.

She was clearly anxious, and yet, she was so composed. It was like those summer showers where the sun was out, hardly a cloud in sight, and yet it was raining. Or those rare spring skiing days when it was in the high sixties, and yet there was snow on the ground.

A shower cabin flirts a summer but a Music slips my Way.

Very green. Green like summer and sunshine and you playing with me in the swimming pool.” Because that was the safety he offered me. The warmth he encased me in. The kind of care he showered over me. At the same time, it was all the playfulness of those days splashing in the water that helped get us to where we were today.