Happy Halloween

I am so accustomed here, on the top coast of America, to see my favorite season, Fall, race by in a blaze of dying burning color, that I was almost surprised to look up today and notice that fall is still going on. Mid October, windy, flowers still blooming, and the trees all scarlet and maroon, burnt orange, peeled liver, terrible fight of ravens, burning poisonous mushroom, and other such prosaic, cozy paint swatch names. It was seventy degrees today! I found half a dozen golden raspberries in my raspberry garden that had barely produced that many raspberries in the whole of this summer. I ate them. They tasted as much like honey as they did raspberries. More are growing. They tasted like good riddance to summer. They tasted like I laugh at winter. 

I looked into the sky and saw a great flock of geese flying north. The moon rose in the day and a witch flew across it wearing shorts. The local squirrels set down their industry. I think they might have decided to start another family. Why not, the acorns keep coming and coming. Tulips are blooming out of squashes in the front yard of my neighbors. They are curled and spotted and dark and fresh and strong, like a phosphorescent match made of coffee. Dun colored songbirds are slowly turning the color of radiant mustards to blend in better. The black cat that regularly strolls through our yard, ignoring us, but still delighting us, eyes the little birds and relaxes. The leaves of the trees only fall sparsely in the day and then they climb back up into the trees before dawn, when no one is watching.

We saw someone who had pulled their car to the side of our street today. They stood in the middle of the road taking feverish pictures. I understand, but know the futility of it. These colors will not resolve on your camera. They have ventured beyond proper names. They have eaten the city. For a week, every day I have said at some point to myself, ah, today must be the peak of fall. 

But this fall has no peak. We may die forever and never be dead.

And this fall may never end.