… and it is not as though there weren’t months and years ahead. The difficult events of our lives are like stones dropped into a bed-sheet, the whole of its white expanse falls, by weight and momentum, and gathers together into a knot of cloth. That night cloth is gathered together in our clenched fist, wound into knots that were not in its nature, tied in a twist of fabric until day breaks… or fingers loosen… or heart at least unwinds.

I am sitting on the wrought iron bench at the edge of the trees, watching a loose weave of cloud sail easily overhead, from day into night, colored by the rays of sun as She sets. First they are white, the lace-wing reach of angels or of doves; but in a moment-by-moment change of hue, they dim to the lightest cream, the softest yellow, the mellowest orange, a blend of all three as the least layer moves eastward toward the sea; higher strata leans north to the mountains and Canada; and the highest of all, nearest the stars and last to wrap itself in dusky colors, remains still as though watching the others’ dance. If it looks carefully enough – if it looks at all… but why not? – its eye sharpens to a telescopic point, narrows to a county, a city, a neighborhood, a yard, and here I am beneath it all, as visible to the sky as it is visible to me. Why not?

The crickets… as I have attested, my invitation to nature, to wash like a heavy sea right up to the shore of my front step, has made my 3.5 acres a veritable Cricket Sanctuary. I should put up a sign… ah, but clearly there is no need. The crickets are here. They are here to announce morning, and here to announce evening; the latter duty has been their pleasure for an hour or so, their beautiful, staccato voices blending together into a discordant harmony — discordant harmony, how interesting — that stands like an understory to the song of the breeze itself. The same breeze that escorts clouds there, or there, or nowhere, sends a cool draught over the lawn, into which the crickets… into which the crickets add their part. My daughter dislikes the cricket-sound. It makes me feel sad, she says. Maybe I remember when we were here and you and mommy were still together. Maybe it calls in the night, when memories are more vivid than moments.

Through the air, the dragonflies flash in their right-angle dance, now inert (though with four lace bodyparts somewhat blurred), now teleported to a space six feet to the right or left. I make them out against the sky. The flies and mosquitos of course know my benefactors are present. The breeze sweeps them all over the hill and back.

And the clouds, once a warm peach color, are now gray, now rose, now gray. The sky could be seen through their fabric, now all blends together like a watercolor palette until all that can be discerned is a leave-taking, the color of departure. The green of the grass is that deep hue you see through tinted lenses, green plus red, and the detail within the branches of the trees has been lost. Only at the top of the forest canopy, where flashes of gold and brick are the flags of Autumn, is there any light. Above me, behind the gray, before the darkening blue, there is a castle of white, a rising tower whose body, as I watch, drains of its energy as well. A scent of cut grass and late season flowers fills the air.

And in this little time, the world takes a great breath in, gently breathes it out, and the breeze calms to nothing. It should be photographed. It should be painted –

One could have painted

Had one imagined the moment to begin;

Other things one might have done.

But then… but then it has been painted, or sketched at least, to the best of this evening’s ability.

And if there is one season, it follows there will be another; one year will welcome the next. And though the clenched hand of the moment only feels a stone, there is the moment when one lets it go.

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