Sunday's Change of Season

There was rain in the wee hours of Sunday morning, followed by a wall of wind---called a wind sheer---bearing down like a freight train at 4:30a.m. Most of us slept like the dead---at least everyone I talked to on Sunday. We only guessed what happened by the lingering evidence: walnuts heaped up in driveways, dry needles forming an instant Turkish rug pattern under the pine, leaves pinwheeling across the ground until noon.

Skipping religious services, I still had a spiritual interlude sitting on an oak stump. It is located in Concordia Park, across from Kaldi's Coffee Shop, and is cut like a chair. The breeze was brisk through the trees, the nervous squirrels' tails never stopped twitching, and an uncle tossed a baseball to his nephew (because the Cardinals won their division).

Blackbirds gathered in noisy choirs to discuss going South, a large albino opossum peeked out of a tree fork, and the yellow and scarlet leaves of the sugar maples deepened their colors. Blue skies with high white clouds alternated with grey racing clouds. The sun occasionally warmed through. This last burst of summer would soon be smashed by the appearance of orange gourds and Canadian cold.