Soft He Creeps

Autumn began making his stealthy way across Summer's boundaries a few weeks ago. Barely there, he changed the light a little, casting shadows differently, gilding the edges of the evening.

Lately, he has gone deeper into the bones of the world, splaying chilly fingers out across the wide earth. Windows open, we let him into the house; here he scrubs clean the air even as he makes us shiver a little before the sun rises and sends him scurrying back to the cob-webby shadows in the corner to await shorter days, longer nights, and his time - the time between summer's passion and winter's cold shoulder.

Edging leaves with color in the night, he spends his days contemplating how he will paint the world during his brief span. His flamboyance is well known in Northern climes - people flock to see his spectacle, cluttering the highways with their cars and their litter, marring the very beauty they seek to witness.

Weary from his swift journey Southward, here in our part of the world he is more somber; his palette of vibrance spent, he switches to strokes of ochre, rust, and sienna spattered with occasional garnet and gold.

Of all the seasons, Autumn is the one I like best. I have endured the sweat-drenched heat of Summer, survived another season of stifling, breath-stealing days and dense, humid nights. I have endured the house holding in all the scents of people and animals, of cooking and waste, windows shut tight to hold in the paltry trickle of air conditioning and keep out the hard, stabbing rays of the bullying sun. Now, for a few days, a few weeks, for an all too brief span, I can throw open the windows, the doors, and let outdoors and indoors mingle freely. I can walk about the neighborhood and breathe a sigh of relief.

While some find this a season of darkness and depression, I find it freshening. I am alive in Autumn as in no other season. When he traces his fingers across the land and she shivers, I know just how she feels...