Summer night

Sitting outside, listening to crickets, traffic, and barking dogs; the planet Mars is rising in the east. As you watch it, moving quickly between two telephone lines and then above them and then behind a pine tree, you realize its movement means the passage of time. The earth is turning that fast.

Bats swoop a dozen feet or so above the ground, barely visible in the growing dark. When they catch something -- I assume -- they make a noise like ungreased ball bearings rippling and squeaking against each other.

In three months, I could easily be shoveling snow from this porch.