Autumn Walk

This is how autumn feels: the sun that was so constant, slipping suddenly into beams I go outside to bask in, conscious now that they are precious. A walk in the forest where I notice all at once that the great noise of my walking is the carpet of heart-shaped yellow leaves.

Fine filaments stretch across even the paved road. I see them, but let them break across my face anyway: fall is spiders, and they’ll have respun these webs by the time I come back through.

It was summer last week, I could swear it, too hot to sit out in the sun. But this is rain-season, slug-season, gray-green…