FARAWAY THOUGHTS AMONGST THE TALL MARIGOLDS

The summer rains, for us, have been well spaced. Everything has stayed so fresh and green. Even the purple martins, at this writing, are still here. They usually start their southward journey the last week in July.

It has been nice to sit in the latticed garden seat and watch the progress of the growing things within the small, brick-lined plot in front of it. First, in the spring, there were the 14 choice iris. They've been cut back now, resembling little green Oriental fans. Beyond them, in the spring, lettuce and green onions changed the scene. When they were consumed by me and the rabbit, in went the tall marigolds. Tall, in this case, meaning three feet plus now and still growing. They've all been staked lest they succumb to the proverb, "Pride goeth before a fall."

When I'm sitting in the garden seat, the marigolds hide me from anyone who might be passing by. Where it is located, nothing much but cats, dogs, and strolling doves pass by.

When the dogs and cats first see me, they stop short, surprised. But I think I can see it running through their minds, "This is something I've seen before. It's harmless." So they continue their journey to wherever they were going. What makes dogs and cats get up from one spot to move to another? Hey, government grant material?" The doves pay me no mind at all but just continue their strolling up and down the walk, ambassadors of peace, looking for food along the edges.

Most times, on my premises, it is the dogwood trees that indicate that their seasonal apex has been reached and they're on the downward glides. Discreetly, they put dabs of rouge on their leaves, seemingly in the night, to proclaim there is still life and beauty. And there will be when their red berries adorn every twig of, by then, evenly blushed leaves.

It is pleasant to sit there in the marigold-latticed hideaway and thing of the days ahead. There will be dreamy Indian Summer with its blue misty veil casting the sharp angles of realism into softer impressionism, as if an artist of nature had changed his style of painting. Grant Wood's "American Gothic," to Monet's "Water Lilies."

One tends to move along, mentally, with it, casting off the well-defined problems of the day and soften them, in his own mind, with vague verities that sharp cutting angles of current affairs and nightmares of surrealism will fold away into history and all will, at last, come out all right.

But, still being in the clearly defined "pictures-of-the-day" season, my mind drifts to the newest trouble spot in the Balkans. Clear are the pictures of parents sending their children away to what they hope will be a less hellish spot on earth. Maybe it is only the mothers doing it since the fathers are away fighting, in prison camps, or already dead. I see ribs of starving men behind enclosing wires, ribs so clearly defined you can count them.

Over in Israel I can see the citizens there saying, but saying silently, to the world, "See what we mean when we say we will not give up the Golan Heights?" as the Serbs, from their surrounding mountainous heights above Bosnia-Herzegovina pour down into the valleys their death and destruction. The reality of physical height in warfare is a picture of strict advantage.

The term "ethnic cleansing" means that Serbs and their sympathizers want to drive out, by any means, the Muslim population. Doesn't this remind you of Hitler's "final solution" which was the riddance of the Jews? Is it deja vu?

The sharp cry of a blue jay overhead brings me back to my world. The doves are still strolling, slowly, peacefully. The shrieks of children at play over in the park testifies that parents are not having to get them out of the country lest they be killed in crossfire, or purposefully. High-flying hawks soar on the updrafts. I whisper a prayer of thanks, repeating from an old psalmist, "My lines have fallen in pleasant places," and whisper a question, "What can I do to soften the sharp edges, to help further the angels' proclamation that there will be peace on earth for men of good will. I sit silently and listen for an answer.

REJOICE!