The mulberry and the walnut have yet to turn color, but the leaves of the cherry and the peach trees are dressed in only dead foliage. Gardens flaunt a few late summer flowers here and there, their gaudy splashes of color distracting the eye from those other plants which have already begun their decline. Birds are busy everywhere, still filling the air with summery songs, but will soon begin their harvest, and their hoarding, the woodpeckers pounding morsels into cracks in trees, the jays seeking soft soil in which to conceal early-fallen acorns.
Night falls, and the clouds remain, catching the light of the nearly full moon, draping it with thin veils or surrounding it with glowing billows, revealing or concealing patches of star-filled darkness, making the entire sky a motile display of light and dark and changing forms. I could watch it all night. Maybe I will.