Autumnal Equinox

These days, darkness lies down with the late afternoon in the hour before dusk and the crickets begin their seamless layers of song, a peaceful sound that settles into my night ears.

Mystery creatures, I would like to attend their symphony someday, to see how it is done. A steady body hum, the sharper punctuation tones done with a rhythmic sawing of legs, all in sync.

The moonflowers have been on my mind. Purest white, dribbled butter lines of seams that fade as they stretch open, wide across as my hand. Moonflowers in light on recent days, where the quality of bright has kept them from shying away. All summer I waited while the leaves grew plentiful, large and green. Then in these late days, the blooms. The first like a gift, then four on one night, lasting into the day. Then finally, they are spent, and the shriveled petal skin droops, those glorious flowers now vaguely horrific appendages dangling from the plant.

And then the deer. Half awake in twilight, I came downstairs and had the slow dawning that something in my view was changed, the trellis hanging away from the house, moonflowers fallen to the brick. And the deer lifted its head to look at me, still slowly chewing.