The Breathing of Summer Mountains, the Hissing of Summer Lawns

From whiskey river:

It was almost dark on an early summer eve, and the forest was never more enchanting than now, at dusk. At dusk the mountain begins to withdraw its force back into itself and become quiescent. If you too can become quiescent, so still that you can’t think of your name, you can feel this as a palpable fact. Just become so still that your mind won’t be bothered to remember the mundane, and then you’ll feel it like you feel the shifting of the winds. Then you’ll know when the mountain changes from exhaling to inhaling. That’s not so important in itself, but the mind that is quiet enough to notice is. The mind that is not always caught up in detail is your only treasure. Stop chasing details and become still to feel it. The mind that sees details clearly but is not caught by them is like a vast borderless mirror. That mind does not oppose itself.

(G. Bluestone [source])

Not from whiskey river:

Midsummer

On nights like this we used to swim in the quarry,
the boys making up games requiring them to tear off  the
girls’ clothes
and the girls cooperating, because they had new bodies
since last summer
and they wanted to exhibit them, the brave ones
leaping off   the high rocks–bodies crowding the water.

The nights were humid, still. The stone was cool and wet,
marble for   graveyards, for buildings that we never saw,
buildings in cities far away.

On cloudy nights, you were blind. Those nights the rocks
were dangerous,
but in another way it was all dangerous, that was what we
were after.
The summer started. Then the boys and girls began to
pair off
but always there were a few left at the end  —  sometimes
they’d keep watch,
sometimes they’d pretend to go off   with each other like
the rest,
but what could they do there, in the woods? No one wanted
to be them.
But they’d show up anyway, as though some night their
luck would change,
fate would be a different fate.

At the beginning and at the end, though, we were all
together.
After the evening chores, after the smaller children were in
bed,
then we were free. Nobody said anything, but we knew the
nights we’d meet
and the nights we wouldn’t. Once or twice, at the end of
summer,
we could see a baby was going to come out of all that
kissing.

And for those two, it was terrible, as terrible as being alone.
The game was over. We’d sit on the rocks smoking
cigarettes,
worrying about the ones who weren’t there.

And then finally walk home through the fields,
because there was always work the next day.
And the next day, we were kids again, sitting on the front
steps in the morning,
eating a peach.   Just that, but it seemed an honor to have
a mouth.
And then going to work, which meant helping out in the
fields.
One boy worked for an old lady, building shelves.
The house was very old, maybe built when the mountain
was built.

And then the day faded. We were dreaming, waiting for
night.
Standing at the front door at twilight, watching the
shadows lengthen.
And a voice in the kitchen was always complaining about
the heat,
wanting the heat to break.

Then the heat broke, the night was clear.
And you thought of   the boy or girl you’d be meeting later.
And you thought of   walking into the woods and lying
down,
practicing all those things you were learning in the water.
And though sometimes you couldn’t see the person you
were with,
there was no substitute for that person.

The summer night glowed; in the field, fireflies were
glinting.
And for those who understood such things, the stars were
sending messages:
You will leave the village where you were born
and in another country you’ll become very rich, very
powerful,
but always you will mourn something you left behind, even
though
you can’t say what it was,
and eventually you will return to seek it.

(Louise Glück [source])

…and:

The moon was brighter, not bigger. I could see that…

I blinked, and the moon left an afterimage on my retinae. It was *that* bright.

A million people must be watching the moon right now, and wondering, like me…

There must be some simple, obvious explanation.

Well, how could the moon grow brighter? Moonlijght was reflected sunlight. Could the sun have gotten brighter? It must have happened after sunset then, or it would have been noticed…

I didn’t like that idea.

Besides, half the Earth was in direct sunlight. A thousand correspondents for Life and Time and Newsweek and associated Press would all be calling in from Europe, Asia, Africa… unless they were all hiding in cellars. Or dead. Or voiceless, because the sun was blanketing everything with static, radio and phone systems and television… television. Oh my God.

I was just barely beginning to be afraid.

All right, start over. The moon had become very much brighter. Moonlight, well, moonlight was reflected sunlight; any idiot knew that. Then… something had happened to the sun.

(Larry Niven, from “Inconstant Moon” [source])

Joni Mitchell went from a hit, jazz-infused album, Court and Spark, to the uncertain territory of world-music experiment with 1975’s The Hissing of Summer Lawns. It’s an album much more highly regarded in hindsight than it was at the time. Here’s the title track:

[Below, click Play button to begin. While audio is playing, volume control appears at left — a row of little vertical bars. This clip is 3:01 long.]

Lyrics:

The Hissing of Summer Lawns
(Joni Mitchell)

He bought her a diamond for her throat
He put her in a ranch house on a hill
She could see the valley barbecues
From her window sill
See the blue pools in the squinting sun
Hear the hissing of summer lawns

He put up a barbed wire fence
To keep out the unknown
And on every metal thorn
Just a little blood of his own
She patrols that fence of his
To a Latin drum
And the hissing of summer lawns
Darkness
Wonder makes it easy
Darkness
With a joyful mask
Darkness
Tube’s gone darkness darkness darkness
No color no contrast

A diamond dog
Carrying a cup and a cane
Looking through a double glass
Looking at too much pride and too much shame
There’s a black fly buzzing
There’s a heat wave burning in her master’s voice
The hissing of summer lawns

He gave her his darkness to regret
And good reason to quit him
He gave her a roomful of Chippendale
That nobody sits in
Still she stays with a love of some kind
It’s the lady’s choice
The hissing of summer lawns

Says Wikipedia of the song’s title and signature phrase (in a burst of un-Wikipedic commentary):

…during the summer in the heat of the San Fernando Valley, grass lawns actually emit a noticeable hissing sound after the sprinklers are turned off. It’s very strange and alien and enforces the “this is not a real home” feeling.

Update, Monday 2010-07-19: Thinking about Joni Mitchell some more (thanks, Nance!), and thinking about summers, I realized the following might have been another good choice of a song here: hot nights in July, the chirping of crickets, a big blue moon, and two people alongside each other. It’s “Night Ride Home,” from the album of the same name [lyrics]:

[Below, click Play button to begin. While audio is playing, volume control appears at left — a row of little vertical bars. This clip is 3:21 long.]