October Falls, mlb

There is a silence in the space it sat; like a cat has gone from a window ledge.  I picture narrow empty roads banked with gray trees.  A layer of mist hanging between the rocks and the sky. Wet windows and fogged glass.  

When I was little it was the smell of wet mittens and colored wax against the steam.  Now it is the scent of childless swings swaying in the breath of an almost winter morning- and sand.

The valley has all gone inside.

This long hot summer has finally been shed. October falls and it waits for November to lay down beside it.  Slow white lace spills out across the night.  In the morning the sun lazily rises licking the frost into dew.

But winter is waiting.  Crouching in the high mountains waiting to roll down the dragon's back to the valley floor.  And it is in the clouds marching in lost armies out above the desert and the salty sea.  It creeps across the flats like spilled milk towards the edge of the table.

I am waiting with winter.  Waiting to hear the sound of snow under my boots; the scraping of the plows against the streets.  Waiting for the slowness that traps the city to catch hold.  Wet cuffs and salted shoes and everyone is running late.    

When winter rises and overflows, I will walk through her until I find cold so cold that it stops me.  Then I will follow the warmth that calls me and I can finally come home.

But not today. Today is October's last stand.  She is falling in a crash of autumn leaves, costumes, and candy wrappers.  The light is cast hard with orange that will turn gray with the final dark switch of the porch lights.

The eve is heavy with the smell of cut pumpkins waiting to be lit; footsteps over cracked concrete, doorbells, bowls of buttered popcorn, and interrupted movies.

Our last child will stalk this night.  It is more than the end of the summer for us.  It is the end of a season.

We met on a city street in the summer.  We fell in love on a trail in the mountains at the edge of a full moon night.  We built our family together in an October without snow.  We made promises to each other in the deep shadows of November.  We hiked the benches and looked out over the valley.  We sat in the wind. We joked about mountain "monogamy".

Our years together are built from October to October and we keep those promises we made to each other stashed like candy in our pockets.  Some grow stale in the bogs of summer but the gentleness of October draws the ghosts from their graves.

Summer has gone from here.  Autumn is falling.  And winter, she waits.

In November you move quickly or not at all.