Fickle June offers us remarkable visions

Moss on the wood path is ankle high, ferns almost shoulder high. We’re “knee-deep in June,” as James Whitcomb Riley titled one of his poems.

The leaves on birch trees balloon out in green the color of Emerald City in the Land of Oz. Winding dirt roads are bosky with maple and oak limbs forming leafy arches.

Apple blossoms drift down like snowflakes, gently falling – yet not melting – and landing on wild lupine and raspberry bushes. Pink and white, purple and green, accented by shiny yellow buttercups and wild daisies at the edge of the field. An artist’s palette couldn’t do justice to the colors of June in Down East Maine.

Irises are in full bloom; flowering crabapple trees are dressed in hot pink amid an entire flowerbed blanketed with colorful Johnny-jump-ups. Bleeding heart bushes thrive in the cool shade while lilacs explode in fragrant lavenders and deep purples.

The land is so lush after record precipitation this spring that weeds are aggressive as kudzu vine and grass grows faster than lawn mower blades spin. There’s no keeping up with the outside work to do – or so little time in which to do it.

Yet this is how the poet Riley passed away his June days and maybe we should do the same:

“Tell you what I like the best ‘long about knee-deep in June, ’bout the time strawberries melts on the vine, some afternoon like to jes’ git out and rest, and not work at nothin’ else …

“Lay out there and try to see jes how lazy you kin be. Tumble round and souse yer head in the clover-bloom, er pull yer straw hat acrost yer eyes and peek through it at the skies …”

Or gather a bouquet of magnificent peonies for the living room, or photograph the varied colors of tall rhododendrons where the house makes an ell. Or pick a handful of violets that appear each year in the soggy crevices of the backyard rocks.

In the shade garden, you almost can watch the hosta plants spreading and the astilbe growing taller each day, warmed by occasional sunny days and moistened with frequent fog along the coast.

This particular June – we’re knee-deep in it right now – has been fickle, one minute cool enough to light a wood fire, the next hot and humid. One day, so calm and still the aspen leaves don’t shimmy; the next, blowing hard enough to flip the lawn chair.

“But when June comes,” as Riley said, “Clear my throat with wild honey. Rench my hair in the dew and hold my coat. Whoop out loud and throw my hat. June wants me, and I’m to spare. Spread them shadders anywhere.

“I’ll git down and waller there, and obleeged to you at that!”