Autumn Equinox
The last harvest before the drop:
When I look out the living room window, I see a row of houses and lombardy poplars. I don’t see the Puget Sound beyond them, but I know that it is there.
The bread today was perfectly rye. The heirloom tomato, perfectly ripe.
The phone is passed from my father’s ear to my mother’s. Back problems, work problems, and alive.
Chit chats with L in the kitchen. S, on the couch.
Thinking that all small talk may be the shadow of something big.
The nook in which I read, the desk at which I write.
All sixteen children, and J reminding me that if I want to know how it feels to fly, all I have to do is jump.
Floating in the middle of a body of water. Bioluminescence imitating the night sky.
The tops of trees.
Or the trees that are mostly in autumn, mostly crimson. Besides that green in the shaded corner, still deep in summer.
Thinking that that’s how we are sometimes. Not confused, just in both states.
New libraries. Trying to reread old books.
Failing to turn pages backwards because their time has ended. The book let go of me.
Hind’s Hall.
Marches, I can still march them.
The bolt of lightning we saw above the water. We ran to the bluffs in our pajamas to see it, the rain coming at us sideways.
Again, the tops of trees.
The dahlias on my desk that continue to bloom a week and a half after their cut. Thinking that that’s how we are sometimes. Late blooming.
The feeling of an end being guttural. The relief of finally knowing what something was. Things are different. I can’t explain it, but things have changed. I let go of it, and it let go of me.
First friends in new cities. First friends in first cities that still cast long shadows.
There is always something invisible to me just beyond the line of houses.
Hello, how are you? How’s the weather? Your health?
How to think about gratitudes? At first, I thought I stole them. Stole them back. The world is really terrible. When I looked up at the tops of trees, I wondered if their generosity was something I wasn’t supposed to notice, wasn’t supposed to have.
Now, I think I’m making them. Or maybe being made by them. There is a room atop a mountain atop my mind. I poke holes in its ceiling to let pillars of light flood in. To balance out the dark. Looking up, I can’t always see the sun beyond. But I know that it is there.
