October

Smoke hangs like haze over harvested fields,

The gold of stubble, the brown of turned earth

And you walk under the red light of fall

The scent of fallen apples, the dust of threshed grain

There's the sharp, gentle chill of fall.

Here as we move into the shadows of autumn....

~a verse from the Autumn equinox~

~~~

This has been one of the longest summers I've spent since childhood.

the days were achingly beautiful under deep blue skies,

the sight of deer bringing their fawns to live in the fields.

15 pairs of ears and eyes

peeking up over the endless waves of wheat waving in the wind.

no sound but for the hum of crickets, the scent of hot sagebrush and juniper in the breeze

and meadowlarks darting from creek to nest.

the fields seemed to grow overnight, stretching towards the gold pink dawns

drinking up every bit of water we gave them, hot in the mid day sun

cool and wet at dusk.

every field of wheat, every leaf of fragrant tumbling mint and rows of

pungent garlic are harvested.

now safe and sound and under cover.

We sit and rest on the edge of the earth and watch the red sun going down over

mountains on fire.

The deer,now grown, walk gingerly through the stubbled wheat.

another season has passed.

and I am grateful that this summer has been as blue skied and never ending

as those summers we knew as children.