THE BLUE SKY OF AUGUST

The memories hang like ripe grapes in the heavenly vineyard of August. The sun hums relentlessly with honeybees, creating the feeling that a heavenly conductor is moving the air to perform the music of August.

The memories of August gather the ripe wheat and faded past loves. And the craters of the moon at night harbour our dreams as they search for their past and future lives, their past and future happiness.

The memories of August revisit the memories of our first love, whose grey hair the wind gently scatters across the sky. And every encounter with that first love is like a glimpse of the life we might have lived if our hearts had not been created to love so much more.

The memories of August are like sorrow for the future and joy for the past. They are like infidelity towards you and a dream of another. Because it is the dream of another that moves us forward.

The memories of August are as vast and radiant as the distant stars in the clear summer night, when you are far away from me. So far away that I must content myself instead with the kisses of the sun. And the kisses of the sun are fiery and passionate. They are as sweet as my longing for you. They are as salty as my tears for you.

The blue sky of August reflects the tenderness of the Mother of God, whose life is an example of a woman's purpose: to give birth to God-men.

The blue sky of August reflects our grief and pain as we gather the fruits of our lives. To struggle against the summer storms and thunder, to pass beneath the rainbows and rediscover ourselves in one another.

The blue sky of August reflects the ripe fruits and flowers of the human garden. It is like a garden painted with ladybirds and colourful butterflies. It is like human life gathered in August—a bridge between the pain of ordinary days and the celebration of the rich harvest, enjoyed by wasps and bees and accompanied by the songs of grasshoppers.

The blue sky of August reflects my body, lying carelessly in the grass beneath the deep shade of the trees. It reflects my body as a fertile garden full of late fruits waiting for someone to gather them. The trees murmur softly and speak to me of you, so far away from me. You are so far away that my longing for you suffocates me, and the juices overflow within my ripe body.

The blue sky of August is as gentle as silk and as deep as my heart. It is like a promise of a new encounter. The passionate crowing of the roosters announces a new day and a new beginning, while the faithful barking of the dogs welcomes the night as a promise to protect people from evil. A night in which the blue sky of August becomes a promise of infidelity that will never be revealed.

The sunny God blushes the blue sky early in the morning and kindles every passion into flame. The Sun God of August is the only master of the living and the non-living world. He warms the hearts. He warms the seas so that they may caress our bodies and forgive their sin. The Mother of God silently watches this rivalry between her Son—the God-Man—and the Sun God.

And it seems as though all of nature rejoices and glorifies the power of these two deities, capable of creating such delight for the body and the senses. The swallows upon the wires hang like solemn necklaces, fitting ornaments for the heavenly celebration of blue August. The sunflower fields, stretching towards the high blue mountains, proudly reflect the radiance of the Sun God. Alongside them, the herb fields scatter the fragrances of the natural aphrodisiac of the God-men.

And I am like a delicate dandelion that anyone can scatter and destroy with nothing more than a kiss. Every humiliation and every act of contempt blows another part of me away, killing a fragment of my body and of my invisible soul. Every silence from you is like a cruel message that wounds the little dandelion directly in its heart. How can we return and begin our story again with a happy beginning and a happy ending? Do you know how to go back in time? Because our sorrow for the blue sky of August and for our lost innocence is slowly destroying us.

The storks carry away the carefree blue sky of August with them. They take it away like an unnecessary theatrical backdrop, after which everyone and everything begins to die a little. My fertile body becomes like an abandoned paradise that must bid farewell to the blue sky of August and prepare itself for autumn. My fertile body must prepare itself for the season in which no one will need it anymore, when the dream of the sun's salty kisses will be the only thing that comforts it during the night.

The clouds send tears that dance upon the memories of the blue sky of August, in which we are all God-men, made mad by love.

I am far away from you.

You are far away from me.

(Elena S. Lyubenova)