AUTUMN'S SAD STORY

                                               

It starts with just a few dead leaves, blowing lazily around in the middle of your otherwise green yard. The tree must be sick you reason, its still the middle of summer. You look up at the host tree and see the yellowing top and then you notice a few others and you know its not any disease but a summer that is fast running its course. The geese on the lake are all the same size now and that lovely auburn color the deer once had on, is fading into winters tan. That old buck that was in your yard last night eating acorns, now has shiny antlers and that ugly velvet moss that looked so crummy on his regal head has finally gone away.

Out in the countryside combines labor in the farm fields surrounded by clouds of dust and big round bales of hay lay scattered like tiny huts of grass on the Serengeti. It’s been three days now without a humming bird at your feeder and the apples on the trees by the garden are getting red. It seems like just yesterday they were blossoms, drooping like snowflakes in the soft spring breezes. You sit on the deck in that old porch swing and look out over the still lake in the autumn sun and you wish you could freeze this moment in time, before the last of your so-called innocence fades away. You remember the words of an old song that said, “Summers going fast, Nights getting colder. Children growing up and old friends growing older.”  But like sands through the hourglass the minutes tick softly away and there is little you can do to alter its course.

Soon the roads will once again be sprinkled with motor homes and trailers, captained by old white haired men with stern looking wives, both putting their faces towards the fading sun. Heading south like the birds of the air, to their winter grounds. Sadly like the birds of the air, not all will return. The lake grows quiet once more except for the sound of the guns during hunting season. The small town you live in goes into its survival mode and cafes that had full house’s and waiting lines in summer from tourists now have a few tired old men around three tables warming their hands around cups of coffee and trying to make the best of it.

 But for today, the old man sits quietly on the porch swing with his old sweat stained hat now off his head and in his lap, held tightly by his wrinkled sun burnt fingers and his thoughts turn to her who left him so suddenly. Two things have not changed, his love for her and his faith in his creator. Winters were more bearable then when they were together and even though most others went away for winter you always had each other. Then as if on cue another old song filters slowly through his mind.  “Since you went away the days grow long and soon I’ll hear old winters song. But I’ll miss you most of all my darling when autumn leaves began to fall.”