After a cool wave came through my yard one night, I walked outside into the breeze, and I suddenly became aware of the disconcerting power of early fall. I was disoriented and restless, filled with a sentimental confusion of sadness and excitement.
The morning wind was telling me stories, this cool wave predicting transformations, the exterior, dramatic alterations destined in the trees and the unavoidable arrival of the inner changes I would undergo.
The wind uncovered premonitions and retrospectives, fed them at the same time, nurturing an almost wild, bittersweet anticipation of the winter’s cocoon with anguish at the loss of the summer, but longing, too, for the death and rebirth to come.
As the day went on, I became full of a maudlin tenderness for the creatures around me. I brushed away the mosquitoes that landed on me, careful not to hurt them.
Then I found a bumblebee motionless on its side in the middle of a red zinnia. Afraid he was dead, I shook the flower, but nothing happened. So I stroked his wings, and, as if miraculously, he recovered, got up clumsily and buzzed away.
Tears welled in my eyes when I saw he was really all right. He had only been sleeping in the sun, exhausted, or drugged with nectar, collapsed in this bright, benign bed, indifferent to enemies and duty.
This is Bill Felker with Poor Will Almanack. I’ll be back again next week with notes for the third week of Early Fall. In the meantime, be ready for that one cool front that will tell you fall is here...and change everything.
