September song

The wind is on the go again, the breeze is on the blow. It is shifting time, shifting smells, shifting seasons. Autumn is coming. It’s not hurrying, it’s making the most of the remnant sun, sneaking in on the back of summer. How strange that the fullness of summer, the crops of fruit and grain and memories, should mature into roundness and ripeness, not at the height of summer but at its end, a prize given to another season, the taste of summer long after summer’s gone.

The leaves are lazily counting the days ‘til they fade and spin falling to the earth as the earth spins silently to face its back towards the sun. There was so much preparation for this, so much greening and growing, so much opening and flourishing, so much light and hope and expectation and now it is falling away, fading with the leaves, closing and completing like the credits running over the last feet of film.

And did we do it? Did we live the life we dreamt of last winter, did we surf the days and tie-dye the shorter nights into new creations, did we capture this year’s magic, the flavour and savour of it? Did we mount the beast and run at the open door, arms wide, voice yelling for more? Are we ready yet to finish with the froth and spin, and settle for the subtleties of greying days?

Could we capture the wind and send it back to harvest the unused days, or would they ferment and rot like over-ripe fruit? There is no gainsaying it, the world has turned and we are sliding down the dark side grabbing blackberries and nuts to cheer our way. I will find the new rhythms of conserving and warming and planning, I will welcome the energies of earth and grounding, but at the moment all I can feel is the loss and the turning as summer droops to fall.