October

     A new month, October. The early mornings are chilly, cold almost, and still dark as I trek again to work, still dark as I arrive some 20, 30 minutes later, a faint glint of sunrise in the east, unlike the bright sun of a few weeks ago, September’s fading light. The air’s crisp now in that morning chill, and my mind sometimes wanders to other Octobers, other autumns in other places, other times, or maybe to Octobers yet to come in places my soul years to be, a place closer to home where hardwoods are turning to gold and red and rust and brown, or mottled, leaves caught mid-change, leaves dropping from their branches and blown willy-nilly down the street. Their clatter softly rattles as they fly by, coming to rest in a corner or stuck on a post, a fence, to be gathered, collected, a pile of muted colors to be scattered by children eager for play, eager to be away from schools that would hold them during the day, the week, trapped in four walls and halls as the leaves flutter free; or perhaps leaves raked and piled and set ablaze, smoldering, a lazy wisp of smoke rising, carried on an autumn breeze. The air is scented now with smoke, acrid in my nose, breathing deep, attuned now to autumn smells, earthen smells of decay and smoke, and apples, crisp and sharp, apples hanging defiantly on the tree or fallen below, bruised and browning. The smell of apples lingering, tart in the air, mingles with the burning leaves, smoldering under the watchful eye of old men, old men poised on their rakes, old men adrift in the memory of fall and earlier times, times long since gone by, times now but remembrances carried on a breeze, sharp and crisp and tart in the waning days of the year, waning days, perhaps, of our lives.