Summer's Cusp

The crickets and frogs sing through the cool evenings, and the morning mist parts to a glorious golden glow and frosted blue sky. The heat of summer never quite rises beyond the embrace of a warm bath. Impatience paces beneath the languor of easy weather with easy, flowing clothes and bare feet and sun hats. The hours of daylight have already begun to huddle and bow before the coming winter. Gardeners feast amid the overgrowth, ignoring weeds and the delicate touch of powdery mildew on pumpkin leaves, that autumn pest that comes with the vanguard of cold winds, the sooner twin of frost.

It's so warm and exquisite I can hardly imagine what's coming, but time's river flows and it's pulling me, the landscape changing around me as I'm drawn from summer into autumn. Autumn is opening her eyes, and she smiles that knowing, seductive smile. What games we'll play, what work must be done in preparation for the Cold Queen and her retinue. Better to get it done in advance of her arrival, for working beneath her heavy gaze is harder work than is made in the comfort of autumn's arms.

And I want autumn to rise and dance, even as I grieve at summer's passing.