The Coming of the Fall

Nowhere to be found in the sweet, lush, fecund days of summer, how odd it is that the faintest glimmer of lost love should exist in the coming of the Fall. Like the faint scent on the breeze of burning sycamore leaves, themselves, one by one, lifted on the wind, small and still, love is yet a dull red ember and could be extinguished by the next shift in the quickening fall breeze. But, where love still smolders, however faintly, so might hope be reborn.

Still, stiller, stillest . . . wait, hope, but not too much. At least more hope than is my due. A cupful perhaps? Warm and rich. Steaming in my hands but too soon gone, however pleasing was its going.

While those quick, crisp days are yet upon us, I’ll wait, still as the tomb, for the sound of the wind flowing like the tide through the tree tops and the briefest riot of color that bursts forth only to presage the long sleep which like the lengthening shadows, and the cold to follow, comes unbidden to us all.

© 2008 Renée Thomas all rights reserved