All Through October

Everyone pours into the hills.

Where the pine-trunk bends into a perfect bridge across the stream, Maida says, I’ll walk with my eyes closed, just hold my hand and tell me every step of what is coming.

I make her a crown by folding salmon berry leaves in half, enclosing the previous leaf inside the next, and piercing the stem through both. I miss the friend who taught me how.

The night we pressed apples, everyone found a rhythm: washing apples, tossing apples into the hopper, turning the hopper, pressing the mash, bottling the cider.

The high green turned to gold. Under the aspens where he sings, we pull our woven shawls tighter.

I’m sad because it’s autumn, and good to grieve at least a few days of the year. I cannot keep waiting for rain, or even clouds, to stay in.

There are still crickets pulsing in the darkness, there are still apples ripening on the tree. There are so many good places to be.