Kick through the remaining crack and rattle. In a couple days the rain will come, an invitation to the season of softness.
On this corner, under this tree, for this day, the light is rosy. Such things are still possible.
The morning rose surprisingly gentle. Nothing more to do. Or rather, calm is my job now. Slow is my work.
Two months ago, this forest was thick with smoke and red with approaching fire. But the waterfall still spilled and the river still flowed and the rocks beneath them grew a little smoother.
I’m peak through my fingers. I’m prepare for the worst. I’m celebrate the good. I’m the rain is diamond and gloss. I’m breath in my toes. I’m under is also through.
I drove 20 minutes to the suburbs to get a rapid covid test then took the long way home. Is the fall brighter here than usual? Did we need a louder message that change can be spectacular? The negative results arrived before I did just as the storm clouds, leaves and sun started their matinee.
The doom voice of political ads has been exchanged for the jangly grab of Christmas ads. The strawberry tree is already in its holiday garb. I need to stop watching the news.
Is it possible to aim and not strain? To keep growing toward and to keep undoing all at once?
I envy the celebrators, honking horns and dancing across the city, across the world. A party would be nice. But all I can manage is a long exhale, a slightly less exhausted nap.
Each fall there’s a day when I say goodbye to light and shadow. The gray arrives telling us to look elsewhere and look harder.
All the varied skins and nature-designed lines. Made to surrender and offer a season of rest to the branch and vine that raised them.
A cactus grows in a tiny square of dirt cut out from the concrete in front of a tiny courtyard apartment. It sits in the rain all fall and winter yet continues to thrive. From its green body it grows these purple nubs. From the purple nubs grow tiny beige dots. From the dots grow tiny beige spikes. From the spikes grow a world of protection.
A thick storm fell over the night and still rests on us, sobbing. What little light shows up today will show all this color grabbed off the trees and dropped into the new mud.
I’ve watched at least half a dozen European tv shows where the forest plays a role as the place where sad things happen, mysterious things, tragic things. Always the irresistible woods. Maybe that’s why I paid no attention to this patch of yard in its prime. It’s only now, as a forest of brittle stalks and gray curves, that I’m compelled to peer in.
The toxic leaks into the beautiful and, sometimes, makes it more beautiful. But also more sad. I see both but sad is the aftertaste.
Tracy Burkholder 
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