Autumn Walk Before the End of Things as You Knew Them

The half-answers, the hot potato shuffle, had left me with more questions than ever. I am sorry I abandoned my fanciful theories to search for facts. I wish I had stayed with my playful scenario tallying votes on the wall in the mens room at the Black Dog Café. Autumn Walk Before the End of Things as You Knew Them The air chips at this silence in breeze and leaf fall, each leaf hissing its scent of smoke and moisture as you walk the train tracks passing Virginia pine and kudzu. This blur in the air a final feeling, you can't seem to shake awake from as you move beyond track curve, rock face and stream. Something seems just out of reach a knowing moment when life will stutter and lurch and the landscape itself will shift, shocked. You stop, watch a red-tailed hawk circling above the golden oaks, and return along the tracks where the afternoon sun illuminates the bank you climb, stem shine and earth before you, this moment meant for, in whisper and breath. —C. Hood Frazier 35 ...