The heat came first. Then word of the storms.
This is the week summer stops being a promise and becomes a fact. The air is heavy by nine. By afternoon the sky goes green at the edges and everyone watches the west. We move the hoses. We check the ties on the tallest stems. We wait.
The plants do not wait. They grow into all of it — the heat, the wet, the wind that comes down the field ahead of the rain. The snapdragons are shoulder-high and every color at once. The dianthus runs in a pink line all the way to the hoop house. The tomatoes have closed their rows into a hedge. Whatever the weather is doing above, the growing goes on below.
And the house is full.
There are bikes leaning against the trees again, the way there have been bikes leaning against these trees for years now. Seven of them this season — people I did not know in the spring, who know the beds by name now. They rise early. They pick before the heat. They eat at the long table and they laugh at things I don't always catch. The work moves faster with more hands, but that is not the reason to be glad of them. The reason is the fullness itself.
I have watered this ground alone and I have watered it with a crowd. The crowd is better.
Tonight the storm will come. We will bring in what needs bringing in and we will let the rest take the rain. In the morning the field will be washed and bent and heavy, and there will be more hands than I have to set it right.
That is a good way to meet a summer.