Now that they are numbered, the warm days are better— they become almost precious. With the sweltering months behind us, the sun can be my friend again. This morning, a feral cat snuggled into a pile of leaves to nap the chilly hours away, and I felt the allure of coziness again. Wednesday will begin October. There will be thick blankets, and hot cocoa, and soon there will be that blessed vehicle for sugar and sweet, warm spices, pumpkin pie. I can almost smell it now.
Late this afternoon the overcast began to break up, and sunlight streamed down, burnishing the pines where brown needles are beginning to appear, and making the still-green leaves of the walnut tree where the woodpeckers and jays and squirrels engaged in raiding parties this morning. It's been all too nice today, and I think how a day might arrive when I don't care about such things as watching the sky and anticipating the change of seasons. I'm glad it hasn't for now, but I can't help wondering what it would be like. Maybe I'll be lucky and never find out.
Sunday Verse
The Opposite of Nostalgia
by Eric Gamalinda
You are running away from everyone
who loves you,
from your family,
from old lovers, from friends.
They run after you with accumulations
of a former life, copper earrings,
plates of noodles, banners
of many lost revolutions.
You love to say the trees are naked now
because it never happens
in your country. This is a mystery
from which you will never
recover. And yes, the trees are naked now,
everything that still breathes in them
lies silent and stark
and waiting. You love October most
of all, how there is no word
for so much splendor.
This, too, is a source
of consolation. Between you and memory
everything is water. Names of the dead,
or saints, or history.
There is a realm in which
—no, forget, it,
it's still too early to make anyone understand.
A man drives a stake
through his own heart
and afterwards the opposite of nostalgia
begins to make sense: he stops raking the leaves
and the leaves take over
and again he has learned
to let go.