Time, the Illusion...

It's like a slow moving death-knell... The sun sets just a little bit sooner; the trees are just a tad yellow around the edges; the air just a teeny bit cooler in the evening...

Can you feel it? The impending doom? Winter?

I grip my cup of coffee a bit tighter as I sit on the deck and look over my 3/4 of an acre. Hawthorne lays at my feet, tongue lolling, tail lazily wagging every time my eyes happen to drift his direction.

The deck needs a good staining. The vegetable gardening could use another weeding or two before the summer's end. Still need to move those rocks out from under the maple and place them in a more orderly fashion around a flower bed...

But the days are getting shorter. My knees have been sore for three days in a row now, feeling the subconscious signals from my brain to prepare for the cold... My hand drifts down to meet the soft tan-and-white fur of my friend. Beaux meows piteously from the kitchen window as a bird lands upon the feeder, the evening show beginning from his front-row screened-in seat.

A leaf falls from the mystery tree in the center of the yard to land on the grass/dandelion mixture that passes for a lawn. An owl hoots from the deeper shadows as the sun dips lower, spreading a fire-like glow behind the mountains. As the north star makes its nightly appearance directly overhead and the bats begin to pirouette on the evening breeze, I once again reflect that, probably sooner than I would like, the house will be for sale and we will begin the process of migrating south.

I wonder if the sun sets will be as spectacular without a mountain to fall behind? Will the nighttime sounds of my childhood (tree frogs; crickets) and nighttime sights (lightning bugs) also reside in the so-called Sunshine State? Will they sing their symphony in the same rhythms and harmonies? Will my knees ache less? Will I drink less coffee?

The sun disappears, although its glow remains a while longer, the long shadows covering the entire yard. The bats blend in almost seamlessly now, shadows riding shadows. Hawthorne stretches, yawns, and clicks over toward the screen door, ready to lay on the couch as is his nightly routine. I put out my cigarette and glance once more at the almost-black yard, glad for the chores being hidden, but unhappy that tomorrow's light will bring them to the fore of my mind once more and remind me again of how little time remains before the grave-blanket of snow covers the sins of a lazily-spent summer...