In Between

Morning holds me a little longer now,

the quilt tugged close,

while the window leaks a breath of chill-

not quite autumn,

not quite the summer I am still carrying in my skin.

The air smells of decomposing leaves,

but the sun, when it climbs,

remembers August

and burns with the stubbornness of heat

that doesn’t yet know how to let go.

In the garden, plants whisper of change-

their green tired at the edges,

their veins rehearsing the colors to come.

A cricket sings as though it were June,

yet somewhere in the treeline

geese practice their leaving.

It is the threshold season:

when shadows stretch longer,

when mornings taste of tea and patience,

when evenings close in a fraction sooner.

We live for a while here,

between the quickening and the fading,

holding both warmth and coolness in our palms,

aware-

every day, every hour-

that the world is slipping quietly

toward another turning.