
… where children play outside between school and supper,
a place where mums bloom in palettes but other flowers
brown and shrivel, a crisp between-ness nearing that we can't see,
but we know the subtleness of the whisper in our ear,
like the almost-bounce of a branch after a bird wings away,
our attention is pulled to the side as if a curtain is pulled,
a sense of the between places being readied
for a crossing. Dutiful spirits oversee
the between-ness of our lives that is the falling
of wakefulness to sleep, of warm day
to cool night, of walking from the sun of mountain-top
to the shade of down-walking in the valley.
The crossing to autumn is in the air, the exit
from summer just beyond our grasp, and just remembered
is a list next to our reading glasses where not all is crossed off.
Our senses tell us the change is about to fall,
when the leaves will change their last this year,
and winds will blow cool and curve around,
and picnics will need a light coat.
It is in the silent approach and the raspy shadows,
and one morning when we wake we will find
this Autumn between-place will be behind us,
and wonder at the change over a cup of coffee
brewed and sipped in the late dawn light,
between our waking and starting the day.
Copyright: The Jotter, 2012