Here is the canvas of the sky. One long stroke of gray, you see it brushed upon the blue blue pastel of the day, it is an overhead wave, a sun-shade, a blanket pulled over the eyes, a watercolor from a sponge, a lights-decay. And then it rains, of course. It is cold as it can be, just enough energy in the shortening strands of the sunbeams to heat those flecks of ice and melt their hearts as they fall earthward. So they fall instead of float, merge instead of mass, drop instead of drift, and winter waits another week or so to make its white appearance.

Then: haaaaaaaaaa the cold blows in from the same direction, as though the sky's designer were one-handed, always wiped his slate from left to right, from sunset to sunrise. The night is black as black, and light as light, and those stars! now that the evenings are cooler and cooler still, seem bolder or less drowsy, they glimmer knife-like, spark-like, out of reach, you wish they would take flight and visit, settle their bright visage at the edge of the lawn. Why not? They are so small, a jar of lightning bugs is all. The cold cold wind blows all the sultry nonsense out of the way, and every evening's serious as geometry and careful as clocks. Tick tick, tapping from the past, leaves at the window, play-acting sleet-sounds, fleet flight to ground. Then underfoot the scent of new earth, under heel the sound of new earth.

Here's the canvas of the heart: the wealth of tears, warm rain that melts before it reaches skin, the ice it was contained within undone by the sun, however short its strands of sunbeams have become. What grace to earn theese seasons with a smile. What riches to know that winter comes then spring again, and summer, fall and winter spring, in a sprightly spin that we've the fortune to dance in. A cloud covers the blue blue horizon and spreads until it's gathered all your friends under its blanket. And then it rains, of course. Instead of floating, taken by the tide, our hands reach out and weather what weather would not leave behind. We all fall earthward with a sigh, and look to heaven for the wings of snow that await another day. Where knife-like, spark-like the wind whips flakes toward our skin, we wrap these layers round us to keep the precious loving in.

Ahhh, the wind cries at the corners of the mind, makes a small howling like the ghost of forgotten fright: all outside, all part of November's song, give thanks for the harvest of love, winter brings its bite. So quickly! we give thanks for the harvest of love, because it is the fruit of our reaching, because the full table we have offered ourselves, again and again and again, with delight, despite old winter's wind.

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