Undulating lace

With synapses well lubricated by gauche wine after a day of staining our tiny, ragged deck, I watched the first fire of the fall burn savagely in her hearth. I stood from my thread-bare lawn chair and sunk to the ground as my rouged toes grasped the wily weeds that were holding on for dear life between the flagstones of a shifting season.

As my spine relaxed on the rigid stones, my lungs filled with the fragrance of moist earth and singed oak. My eyes adjusted to the setting sun who soaked her canvas a dulcet blue behind undulating lace of pecan leaves disturbed by the billows from the chimney.

As my soles and shoulders absorbed the rigid chill, my arms erupted in a cascade of shivers while my palms glowed orange in the pulsating heat of dying embers.

In this moment I knew, deep in my soul, that this season will be framed by dualistic dreams that reach for warmth, light and tender beauty but will be haunted by the chill of ancient angst against which my heart is made to pound.