Winter is winding down. Cold wind, freezing rain and some snow has come and gone, but more of the same is sure to come in the next few months.

Permit me to tease your mind with a song of summer. I’ll pick the month of June to strum my tune. The solstice brings the most daylight we get all year.

Picture this. You’re lying in a hammock right after an afternoon thunderstorm. The fresh scent of cooling wet grass drifts into your nose. You look up at a new blue sky dotted here and there with scoops of vanilla ice cream clouds.

You breathe deeply. A cool breeze kisses your face and thrills your lungs with an uncommon joy. You close your eyes to feel the season in all its perfect glory. A voice whispers words that come to life out of a writer’s journal from who knows how long ago.

“It’s June, and the world smells of roses. The sunshine is like powdered gold over the grassy hillside.”

You listen closer. More mystical voices take turns holding you captive inside vivid scenes of summer splendor.

“Everything good, everything magical happens between dawn and dusk of the days of June.”

You walk with bare feet into a countryside fantasy. Life, now, is unfolding before you, constantly and visibly, “like the flowers of summer that drop fanlike petals on eternal soil.”

The beauty of a June day is almost staggering. “After a wet spring, everything that could turn green had outdone itself in greenness and everything that could even dream of blooming or blossoming was in bloom and blossom. The sunlight was a benediction. The breezes were so caressingly soft and intimate on the skin as to be embarrassing.”

Imagination piques. Your senses are on fire, lifting you above a golden meadow. Your feet step across a surreal stream babbling in the air.

The cool rush of water against your bare legs sends a thousand tiny vibrations into your being. You float upon the invisible water in the high sky until the sun drops below a mountain and announces the end of day.

Looking back at from where you departed, you notice how different your home looks. New words come into your ears, “The summer night was settling upon the neighborhood like a dark lace veil, casting dappled shadows on the roofs and sidewalks and lawns.”

Fireflies pop up and down from the edge of a nearby woods. The emerging twilight unveils a new memory. Words flash into your mind from something you once read, and this is the very moment you get to understand their truth.

The dawn of dusk “displays the combination of grace and beauty, which produces a sight to see. As the sun sets across the horizon and the sky sinks into the depth of oblivion, the beauty of the night starts to appear.”

A new voice excites you like that beautiful song you heard when you first fell in love.

“Glorious stars dance across heaven’s stage and surround the radiance of the moon in an abyss of emptiness.”

Nature’s light show seduces you into its perfect silence. Your legs move as if they have their own will and you’re just going along for the ride. They walk you through the Milky Way into a place of extraordinary creation. You hear a voice tell you not to be afraid. Nature’s hand quiets your breathing. You stand at the precipice of immortality when the voice whispers words of wisdom.

“A minute before the sunrise when the sky begins to lighten, there’s a pause when nothing moves, not even time, and you are happy to be in that moment; You try to stand perfectly still, to not move with time not moving, and you get the sense that you might slip out of this world and into another. You’re exhilarated with expectation. You hope that when your time comes, it will be close to a summer morning, and you will wait for that perfectly still moment before you step into eternity.”

You awaken from the summer haze and open your eyes to a window display of icy rain. You smirk at the sight, knowing that after a four-page flip of the calendar, June arrives.

Henry David Thoreau told a story about a bug that had hibernated for years inside a tree until one day the tree was made into a farmer’s kitchen table. From the warmth of the house, the bug dug its way out of the wood to “enjoy its perfect summer life at last!”

We hibernate in our houses. We put our brains and bodies to sleep and dream away the long hours of winter. We wait patiently to be born again as children of Mother Nature and we can sing the songs of long summer days.

Rich Strack can be reached at katehep11@gmail.com.