Chilled

Night turned cold again, dislodging even more mulberry leaves. There are plenty left, though. I'll be listening to them fall for at least six more weeks. This is the best time of year for the mulberry, when its thinning canopy turns yellow and colors the light that filters through. The effect is especially nice in late afternoon when, if the sun is bright, it makes the whole yard seem as though it were filled with a mist of honey. And then, on gray days, the leaves manage to glow as with their own light, a small patch of stored gold autumn sun lasting into winter.

( Sunday Verse )

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We're headed for a whole string of seventy degree days and forty degree nights. It's perfect September weather! The cricket thinks so, too, and chirps far into the evening. Meanwhile, the mulberry tree is making me nostalgic for school. When any slight breeze detaches a number of leaves, the sound they make fluttering down through the remaining foliage reminds me of a lecture hall full of students turning the pages of their books.

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That there are 142 projects planned or underway in downtown Los Angeles bothers me. They will get screwed up, I know. They always do. I've been right about this for decades, and there's no doubt that I'm right now. So, I'm not bothered so much by the fact that L.A. screws up everything it does downtown, since I expect that, but by the fact that there's so much being screwed up all at once. They need to learn to pace themselves. Gorging on failure is so unseemly.