Charles E. Burchfield, Journals, June 20, 1915

Up at 9:00 – A cool wind grey sky – feeling of subdued sunshine flooding the earth - oriole sings powerfully – robins & wrens – 

Booming white thunderheads at noon – Cool wind – 

To Post’s sketching – As I came home in the yellow afterglow (black trees swinging in the wind against it) with the pale half moon above whistling Wagner’s “Procession of Knights” from [Parsifal]  – I realized I had spent a wonderful afternoon – I was overflowing with hope over my work – I had realized beautiful ideas and seen new things – 

I remember the wind blowing thru the sun glittered trees, meadowlarks singing – long black shadows crawling out towards the gold yellow sunlit eastern trees & fields – how the horizon sun boiled in a whirling mass of yellow light big trees bending in the wind – how shadows crawled up over wind- rippled wheat – brilliant orange tree-trunks – 

In the afternoon, I paused sketching to watch tensely, two small birds (no doubt kingbirds) belaboring a hawk on the wind over the Dutchman’s Valley – 

I returned home at last flushed with my success – 

Even as I was sketching the last yellow afterglow, I seemed to hear the last faint echo of a meadowlark & at once a bat came forth, a whip-poor-will, commenced to call, and close by a cowbell tinked. 

Charles E. Burchfield, Journals, June 20, 1915