Nothing Turns Back

Plainly, I look up to find untouchable light. To the eye, all light is light. Yet to the skin . . . distance does end up making a difference, no?

Hot green tea and a peanut butter honey sandwich. My (yes, my) mustard chair faces the pew, and with the steady steam of falling gold against today's inexhaustible blue, I am indeed reminded to pray.

But I confess nothing. No sin comes or goes. No contrition calls out for bloody knees. I've let my heart burst when it must and ache when it recognized a piece of itself in the other. Attention was given and paid to light and dark and east and west and blankets and ferns. The thought has crossed my mind that I am not the woman anyone believes me to be. How long will this theatre endure? How long does the river hold one's scent after wading ankle deep? Knee deep? Waist?

The odd warmth November gives. The payback winter exacts on the greed of hopefulness. We'll never get all the leaves up. K says that the pine on the west side of the house is dying and I say that I know. Has asks why. It embroiders my bedroom window (yes, my) and there used to be days when all I could do was stare at it for hours from my bed. So I said I killed it with my humanity and he mentioned that maybe I don't have the special powers that I think I do.

Clocks turn back for light's sake. But now my son is 6' 3” and my daughter visits colleges and I hold them longer than they hold me. More than ever, the second hand deafens in a hushed house.

Nothing really turns back.

How the red-orange light piles onto itself with even a hint of autumn breath! And despite what the man on top of the mountain knows, I am working my way up, counting every color that falls before my feet.