August 3: Red

Red. Not a rust or a burgundy, but a deep, vivid red. It most likely won't be native, but occasionally you will see it here. It feels vaguely out of place to me: the vivid red is too exotic, the deep red too opulent. But sometimes, at the height of summer when everything is so extreme that it's beyond the limits of your senses and begins to blur: the heat, the noise of insects, the glare, the smells of baked grass and earth and the soles of your shoes... it seems right for the colors to be heightened as well. So a hibiscus at the zoo isn't overly exotic, and a crinkled, velvety maroon cockscomb isn't too rich.