Lake Gasoline

I hate giving up in late August, as in summer's almost over and back to school next week. Only at this time of year do we hear people say pencil crayons. What they mean is, back to school, NOW, as if that breeze off the lake--today the smell of gasoline, though usually nothing but blossoms and fresh air--doesn't reach this memorial bench on the east shore. I want to seize these people by the shoulders and cry we live in a place to which the natural world, gasoliney or not, calls for a measure of determination of what we do. To waste the word now on what needn't happen until it needs to happen (which will vary with any one of us) seems opportunity lost. It's the 27th of August. Relax!