A Good Day For Leaf-gazing

It's one of those days...good for leaf-gazing💦

This post also includes a poem by James Whitcomb Riley I often think of on a hot day...

(...or bees)

...where we all wish for a big fig leaf to cool us from the sun

Or a breeze to tease our sweat-drops please, until our work is done

Or a pool 'o cool an' some lemonade an' a leaf-song serenade

An’ a bench o’ grass where we stretch to pass an hour in the shade

© Janet Martin

At Ninety in the Shade

by James Whitcomb Riley

Hot weather? Yes; but really not,

Compared with weather twice as hot.

Find comfort, then, in arguing thus,

And you'll pull through victorious!—

For instance, while you gasp and pant

And try to cool yourself—and can't—

With soda, cream and lemonade,

The heat at ninety in the shade,—

Just calmly sit and ponder o'er

These same degrees, with ninety more

On top of them, and so concede

The weather now is cool indeed!

Think—as the perspiration dews

Your fevered brow, and seems to ooze

From out the ends of every hair—

Whole floods of it, with floods to spare—

Think, I repeat, the while the sweat

Pours down your spine—how hotter yet

Just ninety more degrees would be,

And bear this ninety patiently!

Think—as you mop your brow and hair,

With sticky feelings everywhere—

How ninety more degrees increase

Of heat like this would start the grease;

Or, think, as you exhausted stand,

A wilted “palm-leaf” in each hand—

When the thermometer has done

With ease the lap of ninety-one;

O think, I say, what heat might do

At one hundred and eighty-two—

Just twice the heat you now declare,

Complainingly, is hard to bear.

Or, as you watch the mercury

Mount, still elate, one more degree,

And doff your collar and cravat,

And rig a sponge up in your hat,

And ask Tom, Harry, Dick or Jim

If this is hot enough for him—

Consider how the sun would pour

At one hundred and eighty-four—

Just twice the heat that seems to be

Affecting you unpleasantly,

The very hour that you might find

As cool as dew, were you inclined.

But why proceed when none will heed

Advice apportioned to the need?

Hot weather? Yes; but really not,

Compared with weather twice as hot!