Nothing in the Perfect Amount
/Savoring each inch, crawling over September, straddling one's way up into Libra's seat. I know what must die to get there, yet a delight engages in the slow burn.
Waiting on clouds from the West. The parched earth adds resonance to leaves scraping out a landing. This drought seems to quiet the jays who usually have something to say. Yet the heron says nothing in the perfect amount. A dropped feather floats and to watch it drift away is the fitting end to that which can never.
In the patchwork clearing of night's humidity, a few peek-a-boo constellations take requests. I ask for a song wrapped in a blood-orange maple leaf, folded in tomorrow's envelope. October is around the bend and it will place the lyrics gently swaddled in the manger of what remains. Outside of thought. Outside of wisdom. Outside of winter's calipers measuring a girl's worth.
Don't untie the knots just yet; the flow is not as impotent as one might think.
The sedum blushes a little deeper and the canopy begins to yawn. October is for strolling, for woodsmoke, for thicker blankets and socks. When the wind blows, a murmuration of leaves shoves the breath and mind off into a brief and brilliant holiday elsewhere. He says I pronounce “else” with an “n” between the “l” and the “s.” And . . . he turns 16 today and I can't imagine my life without him.
While the acorns stole the show with percussive downbeats, pines steadily dropped their needles unnoticed. As if overnight, a copper flag unfurled over hostas and archangel and stone-stepped pathways. This is a certain paradise I cannot refuse.
there are others
in the arms of autumn
along the way