The sun lingers below the horizon, reluctant to pierce the oak’s shade and flood the valley with morning light. Where my bedroom once brightened by 6 a.m., now, at nearly 7:30, the low ground still holds onto a stubborn twilight.
My morning unfolds in quiet steps: coffee sipped through a straw placed within reach, brief electronic glimpses of the day’s news, and the glowing pages of a book read in the half-light. Then, fresh air beckons me onto the patio, where it has become my summer habit to sit with the valley’s awakening, waiting for the sun to crest the trees at the ridge. Today, I wait longer than usual for that first warm touch on my skin.
In this patient half-light, messengers of change arrive. A flock of Canada Geese breaks the silence, their calls sharp and insistent as they pass overhead. I count them until they vanish. Seventeen dark bodies carrying the same truth: the wheel turns.
Then, quiet.
The air still holds summer’s warmth against my skin, but it unravels thread by thread. Cool wisps slip through, touching my face like curious fingers from the north. Not the crisp breath of autumn—not yet. Just a reminder of what waits beyond the equinox.
The valley still wears its green dress, though frayed and yellowing at the edges. The morning chorus has changed; robin songs no longer lead the dawn refrain and, now, only occasional catbird notes rise from the thicket. Blue jays claim these mornings with their harsh cries, while cardinals flash crimson against shadowed branches, punctuating the silence with staccato notes.
School has begun. Children may still sit sweating in their classrooms, notebooks stuck to damp palms, as summer’s heat retreats in unpredictable ebbs and flows, but, the change has begun. Soon, small tongues of color will catch in the black walnut and dogwood trees, spreading until the entire valley burns in yellow, crimson, and burnt orange—fire without smoke, death without ending.
The sun finally rises above the ridge. A hundred thousand dewdrops ignite on bent grass stems, each holding a perfect, bright sky within its curve. Warmth touches my upturned face—a blessing I receive with closed eyes, knowing each day’s light grows more precious as its measure shrinks.
Here, between summer’s exhale and autumn’s inhale, I glimpse the stillness silently underpinning all these restless forms. The valley has no name for loss. Trees don’t grieve their falling leaves; geese don’t mourn the miles. Only humans draw lines between seasons, between beginnings and endings.
I roll forward into morning’s full light. Not a witness, but a participant. Not separate, but a part of this eternally turning wheel of letting go and becoming. The forest doesn’t just surround me—it flows through me, its rhythms pulsing in my blood, its circular truth written in my own bright fading.