July Strolls
While the July sun still rises high in the chameleon sky,
The night nibbles imperceptibly from dawn to dusk in gold,
But the wild life is not on vacation, the melodious linnet still sings,
The black swifts in their crazy aerial pursuits chase the gnats.
At the edge of the stream flourishes pennyroyal with refreshing scent,
The burdock hooks on the manes of horses its faded flowers with small hooks,
The campanulas serve their nectar to the browsers and offer their bell as night shelter,
The butterfly amaryllis treats cloverleaf flowers and places its eggs all white.
On the Provençal trails the bird's-foot trefoil with its horned pods,
Reminiscent of hound's foot, bride's hoof or little Jesus' slipper,
In the woods, in the meadows or on rocky rock formations,
Common columbine on its sturdy stem plays columbine, swaying its tenuous purple flowers.
Suspended from the trees, the clematis of the hedges seeks the light of the canopy,
Its flowers look like a white star brightening its happy heart-shaped leaflets,
Formerly beggars rubbed their skin with their leaves to inflict wounds,
Generating the pity of the passers-by, the plant received the nickname "grass of the beggars".
After digging their nest at the bottom of the burrow in the land of the embankment sheltered from the fresh wind,
Peckers, the bee-eaters go back and forth to feed their voracious little almost obese,
As for the wall lizards, the finished breeding season, they can finally bask,
While the jagged magician grasshopper, without mating, reproduces in parthenogenesis.
On the Causses the summer psalmody of the lawns leads to the winds unleashed,
The stipe pinnate in his dance of "hair of angel", liberating its silky and silver plume,
The rare Apollon butterfly will have its first love among the nectariferous orpins,
In the heavenly Cevennes the majestic vultures descend feasting near the odoriferous carcasses.
At the edge of the peaceful pond, a hungry heron surveys the thick carpet of water lilies,
Taking a sunbath frog croaks his happiness with wide mouth,
Approaching discreetly the artist not to interrupt this concert in the mouth,
With a quick and strong peck, the crabbery puts an end to the festival and gobbles the diva without makeup.
Very agile with its prehensile tail, the harvest mouse plays the acrobat of the fields,
She is fond of cereals where she stores seeds and insects well,
Provocative it hides some of the food underground for the long winter months supported,
In its nest of entwined leaves, as big as a tennis ball, will be born the young mice.
In the depths of Alaska the brown bear enters the dance, armed with a fierce appetite,
Prepares to whip up sockeye salmon going up rivers and miraculous rivers,
Near Hudson Bay between boreal forests, arctic tundra and rocky shoreline,
Its giant figure hovers in all minds, the polar bear is everywhere, atrocious.
In Sami country, the summer in summer is the scene of the marking of the young reindeer in boom,
The "Làvvus", tents erected for transhumance, light up under the sun in bundles,
In the light of the Arctic night, the breeders equipped with the svahpa, pole finished with a lasso,
Spot the little fawns, mark them in the ear, then release the corral for the great cavalcade.
Back home where suddenly the air weighs heavily on the hills, huge clouds rise on the horizon,
Summer makes its big heavens that are tinged with slate swallowing the blue of the firmament,
Then suddenly a hack of titanic lightning tears the sky violently,
Nature delivers her signature by her powerful discharge of light and sound.
L’ ARIÉ…JOIE