The air weighs more today. I sort of doubt that this is scientifically verifiable, but if it is, I'd be happy if someone told me how this might be measured. The air's gray; as a painter I know that black weighs more than white, that these molecules are heavier. The interstices between the oxygen and carbon and hydrogen in free form are laden with aitch two oh; periodically it coalesces in sufficient amounts to let loose a light drizzle on the sidewalks. The coffeehouses are a little fuller now than they were two weeks ago; the bars have stopped ordering the fresh mint that means mojito season.
Fall started officially last week, on September 23. It slipped by me unnoticed somehow; I must have been out in the yard, clipping the valiant zinnias as quickly as they blossom. To save them from the frost. To save a few last smudges of color with which to ward off encroaching winter. For it's coming. Here in the northern midwest, that cannot be welcomed like a drop-in visitor; one must plan for it, change the lightweight blankets for the quilts, eiderdowns and woolies, the screens for the storm windows. Soon the lakes will lose the skies they hold in their bowls all the summer. Soon, all will be white, except the black slashes of the tree branches marking off the dwindling distance between the implacid heavens and the hard, frozen earth.
Look at the squirrels.
They're going crazy. The tree branches overhead are full of their chattering. "Henny! Did you bring in the nuts from the old man's yard?" "Esme, what's become of the hazelnuts you promised me!" They scold worst when I'm out digging in the garden, alarmed at the prospect of losing their stash to my shovel. I am uneasy that I haven't seen any of the neighborhood's burgeoning rabbit population lately. Are they under my old house, creating next spring's brood? If I board up the hole I spotted, will I have a dead rabbit family perfuming the eventual spring thaw?
Fall. Already some of the trees are dropping their leaves.
Apples no one will ever eat are falling to the ground to rot. Children squeal when they step on them; mothers scold when those soles traipse into the house unwiped.
Everything is falling. Towers, apples, the leaves. "Ashes, ashes, we all fall down." Already I am resisting gathering up armloads of deeply colored reds and golds and their dowdier but still regal brown cousins. I'm like a squirrel myself, wanting to hoard these. Already I am looking backward, inward. Fall is such a deep time. The graveyard is full of dark maws. Halloween is a dim shape but recognizable in the unfolding dusk.
Bring me your squash, your gourds,
Your chrysanthemums and stems of Russian sage.
The nuts and homely tubers freed from shores;
Bring these, earth's final volupte to me.
I wait and hope another spring to see.
Ha ha ha. Now that is one bad piece of poetry!
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