Quiet Sigh

This morning's walk gave me a taste of fall: brown leaves on the roadside, thick clouds in the sky. There were fewer people about, and I picked up my pace just to get warm.

Autumn arrives next week, but tell that to the crickets, which are chirping more slowly these days, and to the cicadas, which aren't chirping at all.

Working outside now, I glance up at the roses that twine on top of the pergola, a few of them in second bloom.  I notice how thinned out they have become, how fragile.

It's still a humid, green world, but the edges are peeling away to reveal what's been hidden beneath all the time: the bare trunks of winter, the quiet sigh of fall.