Georgia Summer Hot Green – ImproVerse Haibun

The Northwest Georgia summer is hot. That doesn’t surprise me. I expected the weight of heat like an oven. What shocks my mind, not my system, is that August on the banks of the West Chickamauga is not as uncomfortable as I remember Wisconsin being.

Mid-August growing up in Milwaukee when it was 99 + 99, (99 degrees with 99% humidity,) when the air hung heavy and thick and still all day and all night. When the only relief was going down to Lake Michigan’s white sandy beaches and stumbling from heat exhaustion into the ice cube cold water.

I wonder sometimes if that’s where I got my heart problem: The shock of the clear, cold water compared to the city’s oppressive heat and humidity.

And the bugs in Wisconsin. The State Bird: Mosquito. Called carrier mosquitos because they’ll carry your children away.

Georgia summer, at the funnel end of the ancient Appalachians? Although I’m surrounded by lush green trees and fields and plenty of water, and although it’s hot, there’s surprisingly low humidity here. And what few bugs there are simply make a lot of noise, but they don’t land on me. They don’t suck me dry.

Even so, I fear I can still only last for 15 or 20 minutes out on the back deck. Despite being in the shade, I’m afraid the heat will get to me, sneaking up on me as I’m listening to the sounds of the bugs chirping and whirring and chuck-chuck-chuck-chucking pumbing pumping bumping, bugs with sounds I don’t recognize from my youth. But no biting. I can handle that.

Glancing around, ignoring the Georgia summer heat a while longer, I’m surrounded by trees. Mighty oaks. Black walnuts. Shagbark (scaleybark) hickory trees. Many others that I did not grow up with but that I recognize: Cedars, redbuds, wild cherries, ash, American elm, Bradford pears, honey and black locust. This, I think, is a good place.

As the butterflies flit around amongst the wildflowers and tall unmown grasses and the birds call and sing and warble, this is a place I’m relaxing into. Hot but not so humid in the Summer. Cool and even cold (my Daisy girl thinks), but not sub-zero in the Winter. Glorious, colorful Falls and hopeful Springtime.

And the silence! Georgia summer reverberates with the silence of Nature’s loud cacophony rising from the creeks and marshes and fields and woodlands surrounding this place, and soaring and screeching and honking overhead.

Just give me a popsicle. I’ll stay out here on the back deck, in this welcoming Georgia summer, a while longer.

Sweltering Georgia Summer Heat Haiku
Your sweltering heat/
wraps me like a thick old quilt./
10 outside’s enough.