Summer arrived on cat's feet Spring had already overflowed its banks and Summer merely crested carrying trees and stirring the silt whether it also had nine lives I'm not sure but even after an early frost and leaf drop the humidity returned a few times so that's got to be a few lives right there but who's counting and it's too early yet for an Indian Summer but then there's the phenomenon of false Fall to consider a near cousin to a false Spring and when it got cold again the squirrels shivered their acorns so many diamonds as they sang Well I'll be damned Here comes your ghost again But that's not unusual It's just that the moon is full And you happened to call a sure sign was probably the tomatoes whose stalks had browned but the garden still produced pumpkins and there were a few cucumbers still so all was well and all will be well until the cold takes Summer's last life and we desce...

Autumn gives a chill before it starts to claw the gifts of Summer back so today I saw the yarrow brown and withering and the thistle gone to silk and seed I'm not sure if this was the effect of the heat or a portent of Winter coming yet the clover thrives always the first to come back after the grass is cut and the chicory mimes its own success having escaped the mower and the heat but into the tangle of green I saw a shadow pass was it perhaps a garter snake or a field mouse quietly feeling their way either way they would prefer that I had not seen them even their ghosts wraiths of a longer night and so Fall exacts her toll with hands as cold as ice only doing her job so the flowers and the trees can rest in expectation of longer days and shorter nights and the promise of better light for some reason the groundhogs stood in attention in the mound in front of their dugout facing away from the street looking at each other's backs o...