‘Melancholy’ is one of my favorite words.

It’s not a particularly favorite state of mind, as wildly familiar as it sometimes seems.

A melancholy summer seems a bit of an oxymoron, an unfair alignment with an emotion that seems the antithesis of what should be the sunny happy season. My infuriating pathology is such that it goes against the happy grain when sunny days are expected. I’m as much a dark cloud as a hoot and a half – it’s generally a pesky problem for all who try so hard to love me.

In the high heat of summer, after a night rain, the day begins in hazy focus or lack there-of. The eye moves in on water and light, while the grass rises to shake it off, slowly bending upward and letting any remaining raindrops fall into the ground. Summer awakens and rights the day.

I like the silence of early summer mornings when the birds aren’t even singing and the cicadas haven’t started their incessant moan. The pool is still, the air doesn’t move, and even the fountain grass that moves in the most slight of breezes stands frozen as if in sculpture. It puts me in mind of a favorite poem by Pablo Neruda, which features a favorite word.

Poem XV by Pablo Neruda

I like for you to be still: it is as though you were absent,
and you hear me from far away and my voice does not touch you.
It seems as though your eyes had flown away
and it seems that a kiss had sealed your mouth.

As all things are filled with my soul
you emerge from the things, filled with my soul.
You are like my soul, a butterfly of dream,
and you are like the word Melancholy.

I like for you to be still, and you seem far away.
It sounds as though you were lamenting, a butterfly cooing like a dove.
And you hear me from far away, and my voice does not reach you:
Let me come to be still in your silence.

And let me talk to you with your silence
that is bright as a lamp, simple as a ring.
You are like the night, with its stillness and constellations.
Your silence is that of a star, as remote and candid.

I like for you to be still: it is as though you were absent,
distant and full of sorrow as though you had died.
One word then, one smile is enough.
And I am happy, happy that it’s not true.