Luminous

Tonight, we were presented with the always delightful combination of moon and clouds. The clouds were of the tenuous variety which are like giant, pale fingerprints on the dark sky. I watched them form, drift and dissolve as the dazzling moonlight played across them. A bit of the wind that carried them even managed to make its way to earth, rustling the leaves and cooling the parched soil. It was a reminder that nights such as this are the one thing I will truly miss about summer. The soft luxuriance of its nocturnal air, so different from the stifling air of its hot days, is intoxicating, and invites me to spend too many hours drinking in the light of the Milky Way. Ah, well. The languid temptation will soon be gone, only to be replaced by the more invigorating temptation of autumn nights as crisp as fresh apples and as pungent as wood smoke. Soon, I will be spending too many hours of the lengthening nights watching heavier clouds, bundled against the chill, hearing no sound of katydid or cricket, but only the soft clicks of dry leaves returning to the earth.

Fade

If, when I was ten or twelve years old, someone had told me that a day would come when I'd be glad to see September arrive, I'd never have believed them. September was the time when the long days of summer were winding down and the prospect of returning to school cast a pall over the dark evenings. It was ages ago, and yet, even now when I relish the approach of autumn, the ghosts of old memories sometimes kick in, almost like an autonomous response, and a certain slant of light falling through a yellow afternoon will bring me a sense of melancholy. Should a dog happen to bark or a screen door slam somewhere far enough off to create that faint, empty echo that happens outdoors, or should I hear kids fall silent after the last round of some evening game, it is as though, for a moment, I were still that age, regretting the failing day and the declining season, trudging home through suddenly empty streets, the lamps coming on too early, the coming night's anxious dreams already lurking in shadows. Wherever you were, there you are.