catching up to rest

we didn't know summer had ended when it had, conclusively instead of the usual fade. abandoned basketball hoop swishes only clouds on an unnamed side street. i have pictures that prove this. shriveled grapes dangle on the garage beside. the chestnuts have landed, their funky, lime quilled escape pods, split open & empty as useless evidence, rot among the crushed who garnish my neighborhood's tar cake. i do not own this. i am tempted but i have already chosen the chestnut i will keep pocketed for tactile company during my cool, moist, mid-winter walks. second thoughts about the nut, is it smooth enough? i love the feel of a fresh chestnut, caressing the polish of its soft mahogany, seed clasped as  mind plays its movie, feet programmed for shelter. sunday means strings, and so we begin with violins, as the owner complains about the too vigorous bowing, he who longs for just the right attack. the strings need to be plaintive, but not too passionate for our middle-class morning. richard wright said: "the truth of the power of the wish" but the dream dies in the early pages. so says the times. green limbs feather the girl with long brown hair, who skateboards in the rain. i look up to the remorseless ruby eye, there all along, bulging from the glassy ornate frame. they will never be together like this again. calculating the swirl i must enter to exit, hoping its nature is episodic. presence mitigates the loss, an affordable lawyer magnetizing direction. red haired young woman in a red dress stands at the counter, facing the day with fake eyelashes that pull me into her sweetened, coffee bean gaze. and when her hands lift i notice the nails are hot chocolate brown and chipped. now it's cello, probably bach, all surging dark waves, thick & rubbing, like the feeling of something that won't go away, like the loved ones you lost who somehow elude you even as they have permanently moved in. outside, bouts of wind, i suppose there could be wind inside if we wanted to get poetic, and we probably shouldn't. brown leaves stream horizontally from trees to the circle of green they surround, curb as leaf bump, braking their speed, here where children play. everything standing has begun to be traced with damp shadow & photosynthetic flakes of rust. thirst quenched and flung. this morning i slept in, and like a rancher searching the hills for his spooked lamb, i have finally retrieved all my lost & scattered dreams. 

images from the documentary "Sweetgrass"
http://www.pbs.org/pov/sweetgrass/