I will remember today, a perfect day in early fall. Morning brought drizzle, mist and chilly air. Birds were silent in the early light except for the soft chipping sound of the cardinals, shrouded from view behind a veil of mist and the soft grey light of of morning. Cricket calls were muffled. The last of the katydids, their voices creaking with age, spoke in soft stutters.
In the afternoon, the sun broke through bathing the whole valley in a bronze light. I took a walk in the woods behind the house where trees dripped from the morning’s rain, and the forest floor bloomed with mushrooms that had sprouted over-night through the damp leaves. On the north hillside tiny fungi the size of shirt buttons perched theselves on hair-like stalks, littering the ground like pearls scattered by some careless millionaire ovblivious of there worth.
As I returned to the house, a fresh breeze tossed the trees. A shaft of light slanted through their branches as though a door in the cosmos had been left a-jar, spilling light from some ancient star into my waking life. Spiders spun. The planet breathed. For the first time in a long time my mind grew quiet. My spirit took up the slow, mellow, rhythm of the fading year. I felt spent, and I rested from my labors.
Julie Atkinson
Steve
Holly Atkinson
