Afternoon Swim

Just as the afternoon sun tips downward in its westerly path, the pool is suffused with a warm light that gives the water a jewel-like tone. The surrounding oaks and pines form a bowl that intensifies the droning of the cicadas so that all noise from the street and neighborhood is drowned into inconsequential nothingness. Overhead the kites call and soar, interrupted here and there by fat, iridescent dragonflies and lazily drifting clouds.