Sweat

   I’m combating the heat by planting hellebore.

   It came in a week ago, heralded by a evil looking red icon on the National Weather Service website. The little thumbnail heated up the whole screen, burning away the text on either side of it and sunburning anyone foolish enough to check the forecast. And it has sat on us ever since, blasting through open windows at dawn, baking the grass all day, and lingering in the center of the house well after dark. It sticks to you in the afternoon, even in the shade, and you may as well give up and head out to the heat and confront it head on.

   I do greenhouse work in the morning, potting things on at a little table I’ve set up in the shade. I stay cool as long as I move slowly and stay out of the sun. There’s no escaping  the heat in the afternoon. The gnats bring it into the shade. It sinks down through the leaves. It wraps around the house. I put on some sunglasses and go into the fields, preferring to be super hot on purpose than to be too hot and tying not to be. I weed or hoe until the sun goes behind the hill, and then I plunge into the creek. For a few moments I feel cool, right to the sore.

   I psyche myself out, also, by thinking about cooler times. I pull out seed catalogs and pretend like I’m around the fire in February. And I plant hellebore, in narrow little seedbeds on the edge of the farm. They won’t germinate until December, and that very thought cools me down. Once mature, they’ll bloom in January and February. The blossoms will snuggle with the snow. The thought denies the heat. The image of he snowy bloom extinguishes the red hot sun.