It is the last day of summer and this blue day out of time is like a lingering kiss goodbye. Up I-26 West toward Flat Rock the ancient Blue Ridge sits majestic under a low layer of fluffy white clouds. Coming closer blue melts into the still lush green of summer with only a tinge of yellow or brown. Trees are laden and dripping with nuts and seed pods. Black Eyed Susans bloom ferociously on the sides of the road. Here there is a field of dark pink Cosmos and there a roadside planted with orange Zinias.
But the song birds have abandoned their nests, the Monarchs have passed through landing briefly in the Butterfly Bush at my back porch. I learn in my emails from Fran at Harbor Island, that the last babies from the last Sea Turtle nest have crawled into the ocean. The snow cone stand has closed: "Nancy Has Gone Fishing" on the sign. I have bought the last real tomatoes from 90 year old Vernon Griffin out in the country. The children have gone back to school on the yellow buses. And I have gone out in the early dawn and picked the second crop of figs for preserves.
The parking for the Sandburg Home is filled up and I park along a yellow curb. A thin man dressed for the office tells me there is parking at Flat Rock Landing and then you can follow the brick wall to the park.
At the pond a sign cautions about Banded Water Snakes. I see none today but once in the past, I looked down on the rocks below and saw countless snakes like live spaghetti, an unsettling sight.
Boofa and I take the Glassy Mountain trail across from the goat barn. There are more caution signs for snakes, ticks, poison ivy and Black Bears. But the trail is wide enough for a vehicle and goes straight up one and a half miles to a smooth rock outlook. There is a team of cross country runners from Hillcrest Middle School in Greenville jogging up, then back down, then timing themselves. At the outlook, we meet one of the trainers with a dog named Freckles much like Boofa, but he is actually a Cockapoo, white with roan spots like Boofa. The view here takes in a panorama of green then blue and fading mountain ridges under the clear warm blue sky. I look for petroglyphs on the rock face, but find none. I know that they must have been here, however, the ancient ones. It is a timeless spiritual place.
Going back down I pass the thin man in office dress climbing up. There is a roped off path which is a short cut made by hikers going to the outlook. Because it was not traditionally used by the Sandburgs, it is now closed. Another offshoot of the trail goes to Little Glassy Mountain.
Driving down the Saluda Grade past the town of Tryon, I am listening to country music on 92.5 fm and appropriately, the love songs are all about loss, betrayal and regret, just like the end of summer.
The summer that I have loved so passionately is boarding a train for South America.
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