NOTES ON MID-SEPTEMBER

I.
There's a comfort there, in the moment after the summer's din finishes and the autumn's calm begins. There's a comfort there and an open window and a heavy blanket to let it in—a pattering portal and a softed weight on the skin to undo the sun's steady burdens.

II.
The pointed finger of a jilted lover, autumn's wrath comes in hot by day and cold by night with rains—oh man, the rains—and no winter coat nor summer short can prepare you for the muted passions of another year's gradual fade to dark.

III.
Fluttering wings sing with smiles in the low lantern light.

Signs

The next time they met, he was an ecologist. She went with him early one weekend morning to walk slowly through the woods, more a perusal than a hike, his pace like a bookstore patron with all afternoon to spare. She watched him browse, scan, pause, trying to make sense of what he took note of and why. To him it was not all just a fresh flat green. He noticed impossible things. Tiny abnormalities, the slightest disturbances in an invisible design. "I could never do this," she said, admiring, over an apple split in half. "But you do," he said, smiling. "We both read signs."