The Prodigal Sun

The end of autumn is like gazing at the mouth of a dark, long cave on the path ahead. Realizing that you must take shelter, yet fearing you will lose your way and never see the light of day again, you hesitate moving decisively. For months all will be gray and bumpy and filled with a dying slumber. As an elder, we do not like to see dying all around us.  

We work at creating  an artificial stasis of  warmth and light while waiting for the sun  to return and favor us.  We get a bit of joy from the call of the geese at midnight on the water.  They are like  old women arguing over laundry or ripe fruit at the market.  We smile, because  it  is  their energy that  reminds us that life goes on in spite of the dark and cold.  They are a trill of silliness.

In the damp gray morning, we feel a  soulfuless gazing into the  chocolate eyes of the  doe as she studies the edge of our woods with  snow across her nose and with ears angled listening for life.  

Ahead on trail  is a conifer with a low  branch.  We inhale the green of needles pressed between our gloved hands and think of spring.

Winter is  that slow part of the symphony where we can just barely hear the drum and the fade of the string instruments that causes us to lean in.  Then there is the quiet pause, longer than a fermata, which makes us hold our breath, and just when we  must gasp, the sun laughs over the horizon.  Miss me?