Insects chirping in the late October warmth remind me of what it means to hold on – perhaps without consciously holding on. Ghosts and memories pass in autumn winds. Do the crickets remember warmer nights? Do the brittle leaves taste different – more bitter than their sweet gum spring? Chirping as instinct, maybe lamentation.

Smoke hangs low above the trees by the mountainside highway. The valley below, hazy in its waking, waits blanketed. The paper mill shift started three hours ago. It was dark then – in this town where you expect to see the new shift walking to work, lunch pails in hand, traffic lights blinking. 

In the other room, sports analysts squawk and I retreat. Here, Art Blakey & The Jazz Messengers walk methodically through the morning. I tap out the beat to “Dat Dere” on the dog’s head draped across my legs. He looks unamused – squinting his eyes with each tap. The drummer? The dog? Blakey?

Morning headache, pinprick shiver of a body chill. When I close my eyes and “look around,” I hear and feel a staccato throb double pulse in my temples and ears: two punches landing in a deflated Mylar balloon – chh chh, the double snare drum tap on flappy, loose snares – wish swish.

The shuttle driver, an older oaf of a man, shares, “his nose won’t stop bleedin’ – he’s got so much gunk up in there, must be the time of year.” He wrestles and strains with his seat belt. Our minivan drifts left towards the parked SUV. “C’mon you son of a bitch.” Click. 

Late light and long shadows drape this sweater sleeve afternoon across the yard – a shining kiss on the rosy-cheeked young maple and the red, red barn. It’s the type of day where we might feel halfway to something that doesn’t have an end, like a day or a sky or yesterday’s rainbow.

Briefly, my morning horizon sings yellow and peach. Creeping gray pushes down, envelops. In the wilted ivy climbing a thick oak, wrens play hide and seek. The dog pulls and pulls again – the morning smells too explosive for his animal heart to ignore. Temptation is a street corner patch of grass.

Purple leaves (maple) curled at the edges crumple brittle underfoot – a sound almost deafening at dawn. This is what I remember at the end of the day – the swish swish of feet and leaves. If I imagine hard enough, it might lull me to sleep – dry autumn waves crashing the lawn.

Blustery and cold, blustery and cold, I’m not ready for this. Evening light fades quicker now and soon the trees will show their bones – their blushing reds fallen like a puddle of clothes at their feet. The windows keep the night air out – the table lamp a beacon in the dark.

I pick up my phone instead of sitting still. I pick up my phone as transition. I pick up my phone when stuck, bored, or tired. I could use it to text, to call, to hear distant voices. It’s sunny out. I pick up my phone to confirm what I already know.