Hundreds of starlings river north out of the neighborhood. The maple tree on the corner glows apple red in the dawn.  As If waiting for a parade, piles of leaves gather by the side of the road. Huddled and still like small mountains, they shuffle and grumble when the fall wind blows.

The sky was a fish, by which I mean to say I didn’t notice and it didn’t matter. It could have been anything, though perhaps not a giraffe. The potholes still need filling. I know it was cold. Bad meditation, worse judgment. I wasn’t present in my morning. I can do better.

Rain-slick streets reflect the white lamps on their long arms overhead. A neighbor’s patio umbrella wobbles open and overturned in last night’s wind.  Back from a walk, I’m pulled in different directions – thoughts swirl like leaves on the lawn. Time, work, writing, short-term plans, getting ready, dog. Clouds move fast, more rain.

The rabbits scurry, hop, and hide as we approach. The dog perks his ears and sharpens his gaze. Night lifts slowly giving shape to shadows that become bushes, trees, and piles of leaves. Another day, another day, another small attempt at pulling back the veil on my many desires, my minor deceptions.

A lone pine forms the left side of an open picture frame around an alpine-clear sky and luminously full moon. The bottom of the frame is foreground: arcing maple treetops, houses, and terra firma. There are distances to contemplate. The moon feels close and the air so big and breathable between us.

Above the rooftop ridges, the hunter’s moon low and large glows white with pocks of blue and gray. Every day, and twice on Mondays, it gets harder to play the game. Morning email blasts: how to have a productive week. Who defines productive? Perhaps we’re different hunters in search of different prey.

Frost paints black shingled roofs crystalline white. The sun melts them back to black. I don’t remember last night’s sky or saucer moon. I forgot to pause, forgot to look. Like a peek-a-boo, the day advances ready or not. The sun climbs and I’m incapable of slowing this down – stopping tomorrow.

A few dark clouds stretch and drift with the morning wind. They look like battlefield smoke from that movie scene when dawn rises, and rubble is on the horizon. In the coming light, smudged and roughed up hands will sift. Is that what dawns are for? The sifting through of yesterday’s calamities?

Blushing peach and rose, the bright-eyed sky reminds me of oversized, mid-80s, women’s sunglasses – white zinfandel chilling in the fridge. Clear crisp and translucent cool, the sparkling light graces the tops of morning trees warming red and gold. These are the colors I’ve been missing, the air I’ve longed to breath.

The variegated leaves of the dumb cane annoy me. The only way to describe their mottled greens and whites and shades of in between is through words like mottled or variegated. Bought as an accent during a remodel, it always seems thirsty or dying. A reminder – we’re all thirsty and dying.