Summer lingers

Good times on the Willamette.  Seventy-some days since we've had rain.  Summer lingers. 

Two dozen or more people paid homage to the sunset from Tabor's brow.  Lovers, skate-boarders, dog-walkers, seekers.  West Hills were a jagged purple stencil against the guava-flesh sky.   God's face beamed out across Eternity, casting the river bridges into dusk.  The city bustled beneath a haze of dust and car exhaust. 

The sapling oak is already tall and strong.  Some of its lesser branches have been pared away.  The long, slender fingers that remain will some day be great, heavy limbs.  Strange to think about that.

Thirsty?  I wonder, is the oak tree thirsty?  Seventy-some days, after all.  But those roots run deep.  And there will be more and greater droughts to come.

The word is that the rains will begin on Friday.  From Friday until whenever.  That's the way it rolls here in Oregon.  On the Willamette River.  During these good times.