Reflections

In fall, I can't help but become pensive. Summer was easy. October was beautiful except it lost us 72 minutes of daylight. Now, as my companion plants lose their leaves (these are sycamores, reflected into the LaBarque Creek) and freeze, the warm-blooded creatures withdraw into deeper woods, some into hibernation, some into the house, warmed by propane. And there I further withdraw into myself and think of the late autumns and winters past: holidays, snow, cold, long unbearably dark days, days with watery sun --now fifty years of them to look back on. The soul-food Thanksgiving. The Thanksgiving of cheap sausage and beans. The Christmases with no one. The Christmases I made myself cream of cashew soup, sauteed monkfish, fine vegetables, and homemade orange spongecake jellyroll. The Christmases with very special people. The Christmas snowed in. The warmth of soup and baking. The glassy look of sky and water, like ink drawings of autumn.