Compilation
Friday, November 14th, 2008
(NOTE: Stutter-starts are a common occurence in the writing trade. Often a writer sits down to let the words flow out with wonder and imagination and winds up with only a few incoherent sentences. In the last week, I’ve written several random notes and paragraphs. Since these short pieces were written in various tones and on differing subjects, I thought it would be more challenging if I pieced them together.)
Burned leaves suffuse the backyard air with white smoke blowing from matted piles. The smell is sharp, dry and Maple sweet when breathed deeply. Somewhere in this syrupy smell is a connection to the lazy fall afternoons of my childhood.
Under overcast skies, we’d scrape the grass-tops with rakes and after pull after pull have brown, crinkly and uneven piles to jump in only to rake up again and do it over. We were fortunate to grow up in a place affluent with trees, all kinds, that would dump all colors on the back lawns – yellow, red as bright as the center fire in the burning leaves, purple on big, broad leaves and orange from maples.
To see the colors turn from green the previous five months to such a vivid tapestry was a living miracle for us in a town where miracles dissipated the decade before. The change of seasons was the only dream that hadn’t been taken and it came and went sorrowfully, as all autumns do, but the majesty lasted until the last leaf fell and hope blew out with it. For what trails fall in the prairie states is an unforgiving winter that asks for the city people’s repentenance on January and February nights for committing the grievance of living here. But the people never give in. They draw near to fires, shed themselves with blankets atop sweaters and warm clothes and slippers, and sit close together to gain from body heat and listen to the wind howl past windows and door crevices.
Last week was more than likely the last this autumn that the windows will be open. Only two weeks deep into November, our house is now completely shut in until sometime next April or possibly May, when the volume and energy of three children and their assorted pets kept in by the tired walls can finally be released into the neighborhood streets.
In the mornings, when the weather permits, I like to sit in the arm chair by the open window that opens up to the front porch and drink the day’s first coffee. With the doors closed, I feel it all pushing in on itself especially when the dusk folds in the prairies and rolling wheat fields already harvested and put to bed until next year.
I’ll make my own place to sleep, upstairs, where I can look out on this gray scene – the naked trees – where someone will have to grab me by the wrist to pull me back into the day, to bliss or a chance at it. But is bliss a possibility for someone with characteristics that me so easily summarized:
• Birth mark – left cheek
• Indention – right cheek
• Level eyes, neither green or blue
• Slovak nose down the middle
• Face collected in a soft chin
• Fair hair more interesting dyed with color
Let me dissipate with the leaf smoke into a vice that I can depend on, something with a definite future. So what happened to the lovely little boy playing the leaves, so closely resembling my son? So alive and in the moment, careless and hopeful? Pay attention to me. Happiness is as withered as fall.
