Before Winter

[michaelboy]

Brown leaves settle indiscriminately into the soil and know not the gift of earthen life they left before them. It is much like the coat my dad wore, the scent of his skin and the roughness of his unshaven face. As much as we wish, we can never reclaim a particular day or the comfort in a sensible, matured voice. When I see a walnut tree releasing its fruit to the ground and to what seems like the same chattering squirrels that have always been there, I know that these are simple echoes of desire which sustain our hope – as a maple bringing forth the sap captured in a day of desirous warmth.