Wading in the Stream

I can smell the edge of winter in the distance, a cold and outdoors sort of scent riding under the loam and the smoke of burning leaves and dead fall branches that are crackling into flame and falling to char and ash in the fire pit, scorching brick and earth, contained if grudgingly from consuming yard and woods beyond.

The smoke drifts in lazy curls, beginning low down and rising ever higher, tendrils reaching into the open window to tantalize my nose and tickle a few soft sneezes out of me before moving on to the trees, sending a shiver through them as if they envision some future when they, too, rise on the wind lit by crimson heat.

It isn't cold, not yet, but there's an edge to the air that warns of future need for socks, long sleeves, perhaps a jacket or shawl, a scarf.  The girl-child will have to curtail her sudden bursts out the front door, clad only in underwear and sunlight.  She will not like the need for clothing, will frown and demand going out just like always, only to turn back into the house with shivers and laughs and the realization that she will be COLD if she doesn't get dressed.  I need to get her some shoes for the winter.  The Evil Genius, too.  And clothing with more substance than gossamer summer things.

I am steeped in a kind of melancholy.  My bones soften, my muscle weaken, and I sink down onto a chair, the couch, the lounge, with a sigh and every intention of rising again, only to find myself there an hour later, nothing done, just wrapped in a soft grey haze that dampens my senses and leaves me exhausted.

I love the cinnamon-and-leaf-mold smell in the woods, but I do not walk in them.  I am too tired.  Now, more than ever before, I feel as though I could descend into a long sleep and not waken until winter's dark is well past, if ever.  Dreaming away the darkness seems like a fine thing, to me, if it can be done.  I don't think the darkness can be so easily shaken.

There's a depth to the sky that summer doesn't have, a clarity that only comes when the hot beaten copper light from the sun turns to the softer peat whiskey of autumn.  Looking up into that unmarred light, I can feel myself shaking free from gravity's grip, rising up, dissipating into the boundless blue, and I smile a little.

If I am struggling with myself, that is hardly new.  I can, struggle be damned, still see how marvelous this world is through all her changing days, and for that I am blessed more than many.