According to September's Want

Resplendence on the way to October. Butterflies foraging with honey bees this late in the game. Markedly more than last year, acorns pelt the roof and rattle over the sides – sometimes in giant, angry handfuls.

On the elimination diet, I am thinking more and more about chocolate. And Kenyan AA coffee. And Manchego cheese. But red wine sort of fills the crevices so thirsty for decadence. As this season gives way to the next, blushes of color escalate unto a blazing end. Before the long shrouded sleep, bare branches will rake at a gruesome sky. And I will sip cardinal intoxication for the health of it – for the gun shot pain of it.

For now, light bends according to September's want. Spicy chili, pumpkin muffins, and turmeric tea. The holograph of happiness is one that I willingly allow these days. Everyone is putting out chrysanthemum welcome mats, and I am ordering lamps for all the plants I'm going to save this year. Maybe the greenhouse work will penetrate bones and keep a verdant percolator bubbling until spring.

Did you see the cloud-scuffed moon last week? Did you try to drink moonlight full into your eyes and gaping mouth? The stars were stacked like Grandpa's cigarette pack that he kept rolled up on his arm at all time. The white pine was so still – frozen in the absence of tree frogs and night-calling katydids.

Fingerprints in a used book. What do words mean outside of the moment? Letters imprinting like rabbit tracks in a first snowfall . . . remnants of a slight heat, recording a moment's direction before it is erased, flake by drifting flake. Yet the tingle of seeing those tiny prints, glittering in a later dawn, pointing the way, away.

At the head of temporary bridges it is easy to see how their planking sentences are bolted with intent. That which carries, over rivers and ravines. Over beauty and certain death. Over the distance of blessing and curse. The question is no longer: should or shouldn't I cross. Instead, only: why is it here?