Of Fall

The bones say, "This will be a mean season." The season has come early this year and already thickly codes itself upon the air, filling breaths and muzzling voices. Darkening days gnaw upon the memories of summer, and time draws out along dreadful paths. Winds shift, water becomes less a refuge and rather soon, it changes and becomes a tomb. Look on it with eyes narrowed against the cold. It appears always as an ever-widening hole to be pushed away. An abyss devoid of warmth with a strange perspective. Peering over the edge into the endless gape where light falls forever, tugging with a sharp weight at the back of your eyes. The shudder you feel is the thought, that perhaps it is your heart, into which you've chanced a look.

I am weary in facing it, already worn thin and heavily weighed upon.

But there is also promise. There are memories of a singular sort of warmth. A warmth attainable only in respite from the incomparable northern coldness. It is a fire found far from the sun-soaked days of summer. It comes when trees are locking themselves away, shutting tight their skin to hold their sap We remember it is warm somewhere, we trust to that. Warm faces, and warm beds, and fires dancing where lips touch.