A glimmer: Death of summer

It is the first day of fall. And I think we deserve it. We have had months of blue sky, warm fog, tree leaf, and bright blooms. Glittering seas and mirror ponds. Sand in the bath tub, soil between our toes, our hair smelling of salt water and woodsmoke. More sun than moonlight, more stars than dark sky. High, high, high in the sky. And so, indeed, they have further to fall.

I am high on summer. In June, I greet it at a full run, jumping over roots and rocks, weaving through trees, the soft caress of new leaves on bare skin. I photosynthesize. I brown and freckle and make vitamin D. I make muscle and memories. I bloom exuberant joy like a dinnerplate dahlia.

This morning, I make coffee, go for a run in the woods. Later, I crawl into the comma of my still-sleeping husband, and whisper into his dreams: “I am sad.” He wakes, and doesn’t miss a beat. “Well then, you’re right on time.”

It is called “equinox” but the day is silent. How is that equal?

Change is hard. Perhaps not in the moment. Who doesn’t love apples and pumpkins and a cool forest of fiery leaves? There is gratification in movement. It’s the stillness that hurts. When the leaves fall, when the romance cools, when the ground hardens and refuses to give beneath my feet, when the branches stiffen and claw at my arms. When summer’s paradise is lost to unequal night, and I fall fall fall like a dimming star in the blackening sky.