"June" from a Novel by Fiver

June rolls over in Michigan.

It rolls luxuriant, like a cat rolls over in its sleep; warm and comfortable and good-natured.
April is a month of broken promises in Michigan – in like a lion, out like a Grizzly Bear. A day can start out in the upper 60’s and degenerate to snow by sunset. May is a frenzy of growth and quickening if the weather is good and the insects are in a benevolent mood and if you happen to be outdoors at the very moment that it happens, but June…June rolls over. It rolls sultry, like a tumbleweed of emerald stems and blossoms and leaves, all at the ecstatic peek of their cycles. It rolls thick, like the slow, symmetrical curl of a great chlorophyll wave that sweeps over the whole state from wrist to thumb to outstretched northern fingertips, sinking into the black earth and germinating every seed. It rolls the Sun into the center of the great blue lens that is the tree lined Michigan sky to shrink shadows down to nothing, warms the carapace of winter turtles and transform highways into mirrors.

June blooms tropical in Michigan.
The days are dazzling tapestries of fresh, equatorial greens; heavy Celtic tangles woven loose with Lilac and Dandelion and evening Primrose. The air is warm and sweet with the fragrant jumble of rich earth, running water and thriving, deciduous life. Music floats out of windows opened for the first time since September to mingle with the complex melody of birdsong, the subtle ring of insects, the growling whine of power mowers and the distant, breathy sound of traffic on nearby highways.
The evenings are cool and mild, dappled with wild strawberries, citronella and the clumsy, metallic buzz of June bugs bumping on screen doors. A whole month of late moments made for walking to the store or listening to jazz or talking softly. The last of the sunlight slips into colored glass and mica lampshades and things are in the background of the day. If you are lucky enough to fall in love in June, it will be in the evening.
The nights are star lit jungles scented with Dogwood, Russian olive and wild Dill weed. The trees thatch over a roof of shady leaves that sculpt moonbeams into luminous stems that seem to come up from the ground rather than shine down from above. Black and yellow garters dart under thickets of Meadowsweet hunting Night crawlers and early Crickets who whisper tales to each other among the Jemmycups.
Deer’s eyes glow like Christmas lights as they make their way through fields of Borage , tidying up their runs as they go and the flora billows from the side of every back road like grounded viridian clouds, lush and animated as they are caught in the headlights of passing cars.

June reigned as Ezie Fitz walked the Red Arrow.
He felt no doubt, no regret- no fatigue. He felt only the road, the direction and joy.
He was going home.