09.30.10

Pleasant is underrated. Take this night. Just shy of the witching hour it is not sublime. Not breath-catching or particularly jarring. But. The breeze is strong and audible. Fall is moving in piecemeal—patient and courteous. The leaves, it seems, know in their veins, their souls, that their change is less than 48 hours coming. Their dance upon bending branches is a thing to behold. They hold to the bend. They immerse themselves, rubbing against one another in a celebration of a season well spent. It is pleasant. I feel nearly guilty bearing witness to what seems a private moment. I am a voyeur on my own shrine of porch. They share, I tell myself, bittersweet farewells. And like reverse butterflies they are destined to a death of brilliance. Of blood reds and heaven hues. The colors of fall. They know that in the stead of flight, they one by one will drift and feather to light upon a brittling ground. And their blanket will awe. The dance is not a resignation but a revelation. The acquiescence is noble and proud. It is beautiful in a way things nearly never are. A better man, perhaps, would avert his eyes. But we take our pleasures and magic wherever we can find them. And the hours before true fall are indeed magical.

I am too selfish to not watch.