Needful Things

Autumn fills me like a bellows.
It swells my chest and threatens to burst the seams.
Seething with tumult and tumble, it paradoxically stills me within.

Its bright days couple with lengthening nights and shadows, deepening the landscape for winter while at the same time setting it aflame. It pulls at all the senses and catches my throat. A season without peer, a jumble of dark and light, knowledge and abandon, the embodiment of life before death before life.

Even autumn storms have a distinct voice. Last night, sitting on the floor with my legs curled under me, I heard notes of exultant rage in the thunder and pelting rain. Raging against the dying of the light.

My heart heavy with an unsharable care, the girls and I set aside our Wednesday afternoon to walk in the Big Woods. My town girls need to dip their toes in country every so often so that it's not a stranger when we eventually move, John left us the van expressly so that we could have an adventure, and Wednesday was a beauty.

The girls took delight in opening milkweed pods and orchestrating miniature explosions of touch-me-nots. They picked wild asters and goldenrod and stuffed my back pockets full of brittle leaves. We walked along the old logging trail, which ends quickly, and then bushwacked our way through rust, green, and gold toward the ravine and beaver dam. Moody, napless Annika was sure that every root, twig, and pricker assaulted her with a personal vengeance. Her muster expired about 45 minutes later, so, barely into the woods and still far from the dam, we headed homeward through a hayfield rife with crickets, who, staring in the face of impending doom, still sang steadily and leapt around our footfalls. Countless crows rose as one, like a blanket being shaken, and their harsh, raspy cries drowned out all else for that moment.

Even with the walk ending before the intended destination, we four took in much good, and heady with warm sun and sharp gusts, we walked back to the house through dry timothy grass, past sumac now decidedly scarlet, by gnarly crabapple trees and the future homesite, to be greeted by four loads of clean laundry (that had been dirty when we'd left) and to eat chili and cornbread.

What a mom I've got.