The land of Mayjune

Mayjune. That would be a nice name, and it is for at least one person who surfaced when I Googled it. You’d have to live up to a name like that. Be willing to be evocative. (There must be people, real or fictional, named for each month, day, and season. May Pang, June Allyson, Tuesday Weld, January Jones, Thursday Next, and Spring Byington, for starters. November Brown would make a good name for a torch singer.)

Mayjune is where we are now, the green still fresh, trees still fluffy, the tale of the year still developing, but also that mysterious zone where spring takes on summer. (That's a summer tanager, by the way, in transition.) Mysterious because the signs are both subtle and sudden. A path that’s unexpectedly overgrown. Crickets chirping in the meadow, like a thought you didn’t know you were thinking. The woods suddenly hollowed of migrants and their frenetic energy, settling into a thoughtful realm again. Bubbles of heat that chase the corduroys from the bureau and the shorts and short-sleeved shirts down from the attic where they’ve been hibernating. Dictatorial thunderstorms.

If May is a combiner, she is also a qualifier. I like what she does to nouns you didn’t always realize were verbs. April May June. Or she just as easily may February. March April May. (But always to a different drummer.) May June July: a toast to heat and summer vacation.

In sum, here’s a little poem in honor of today reaching the high eighties:

Summary

Summer takes some of the spring.
Summer takes some of the fall.
Summer takes some of whatever it can
‘Cause summer just loves to sprawl.