The coolness of the air burns in the middle of my chest. A clarity of light moves over everything, moves through me. I see the leaves as they are—more frail than they appeared a few days ago, before the wind came and lashed the trees about and stole the heat away, before the light changed. And I see myself as I am. Part of this decaying world. I feel it every year, at this time. Summer is not invincible; I am not invincible. I ache for the words to capture the essence of something more beautiful than anything I’ve ever known, something the chill cannot wilt.
Rain is dripping from the sky. I can hear it past the window, like suds bursting. Grass that was crackling yesterday, whirring with grasshoppers, is now drinking deeply and flushing green, a final stand against the coming autumn. My chest burns. There’s nothing to be done but hold the pain there and let it move my heart closer to Home. And then turn my gaze from the silver sky, from the stillness of the trees, and write.
Thanks, Denise. I unite in this aching, longing, the pain of separation that you expressed in the midst of the beauty that makes me tear up each season as i try to let go. Peace of Christ and promise of the Savior…🙏🏻
Stunning observation! If I didn’t know better, I’d say you were born a “Southern Woman”…The Seasons changing tends to overpower our ‘laid-back’ natural personalities and give us the deep urgency to dig in the dirt to plant our bulbs to be assured of Spring Tulips, Daffodils, Gladiolus ♡
Melancholy hits me too at this time of year and I feel the passage of time way more than on my birthday or the turn of a new year. You certainly have captured that feeling in words. And perhaps that is exactly what we are here for; all the feelings and experiences, the ying and the yang. Keep writing, Denise! ox