Bright

The green canopy of the mulberry tree now contains a few dozen yellow leaves. I doubt it was the single cold night which paled them, but this is the first day I've noticed the change. Perhaps it has come to my attention now because the tree is dancing and writhing most shamelessly with the afternoon breeze and a flood of bright sunlight. Perhaps it is this arboreal shamelessness which has aroused the chatter of a host of birds who now join the fluttering leaves in filling the mild air with sound. I hear jays, crows, woodpeckers and others, all nattering at once. It's as though the news of fall's onset has induced everyone to indulge in a final summer fling. We'll shortly be hearing the clatter of falling acorns, torn loose by winds stronger and less temperate than today's zephyrs.

The evening will be brief, and the world is in a rush to make full of itself what remains of the day. I only watch and listen, my day being already filled by my astonishment that it has come to this, trailing shards of language as I fall down an unbroken sky toward that pale horizon soon to grow dark. The sun is so bright that my burning will appear to cast no light at all, but only that small shadow speeding across the turning ground. No wonder I have vertigo. No wonder I stare at the dancing leaves.