And to think it should happen on the very day my jasmine hedge produce four new blossoms. This was quite a surprise, as I'd thought it was entirely done blooming for the year some weeks ago. But there they are, two isolated flowers and one pair on a single stem. They smell sweet, but I had to stick my nose right next to the pair to perceive the fragrance. They reminded me of spring, displacing for a while my anticipation of autumn.
But the night air, being as chilly as it is, has now displaced the jasmine-scented thoughts of afternoon and sent my mind wandering down lost streets running through lost decades, and summoning an elegiac melancholy about places where the lights have long since gone out. Meanwhile, one of summer's last small crickets is still chattering under the jasmine hedge, sounding like a small, persistent alarm rapidly sending hashed fragments of time into the starlit night.
