Considerably later, as it turns out.
With spates of unseasonable warmth and adequate moisture well into November, early autumn
richness proved resilient.
What might’ve been cold hard work searching brown barrens
for splashes of living color, wasn’t that.
As ever, the season’s luxurious long light bore sublime gifts.
It was such a lengthy autumn that even fungi finally cooperated, in the end being fresh out of excuses.
Inevitably, the real world did turn. That’s about as
dependable a thing as we have.
Some folk equate autumn with dying. But on prairie sprinkled with oak savanna, even the most pallid
light reveals a promise of renewal.
Next stop, winter solstice. After which daylight creeps steadily
back into winter's world and old promise is given new life come spring.
Depend on it.
