The last breath of summer

A short essay

The air is still today. Warm wind whispers under its breath. Summer is dying, a sweet ripe-apple-scented death with hints of plums and fresh cut grass. Today writing feels pointless. Just a quick way to document the stillness of the approaching autumn. Nothing more. No depth or meaning. Words as a lifeline, or a way to delay the death of memories. What’s left when memories die?

The death of summer doesn’t come with a bang. No gunshots shake the stillness of the bent grass nodding in the soft breeze. No funeral bells. Just the cranes crying their farewells in the distant swamps. The rain sheds a tear or two. The veil of mist covers summer’s pale face. Her lips frozen in a calm smile.

The flowers die every day, a thousand little deaths poking my heart like needles.

I always despise this time of the year. I call the autumn a shameless thief stealing the careless sunny days. I suffer the loss of the season I love.

I breath in; the air is liquified sadness today. I inhale and drown in the moist warmth of the late South winds. Nobody comes to my rescue; those drowned mourning the death of summer cannot be saved.

I can feel autumn stepping on summer’s grave with footsteps softer than the falling leaves. Though I know autumn means no harm. It has no choice, the seasons change, and autumn cannot stop it.

Every year the coming of autumn was a funeral, a yearly cycle of grieving I went through willingly. This year I pray to receive autumn as a gift. I don’t want to resent the time given to me, even though the days grow cold.

It's a miserable evening. Gloomy, rainy, dusk leaves the land soaked in tears of the dying day. It made me remember just how much I've missed the early dusk hours of autumn, and winter. It's like rich soil where I plant all my misery, and words grow out of it. Words, paragraphs, stories; my dearest, darkest flowers...

Maybe this year, I’ll learn to love autumn, and be grateful for all its gifts. The stillness of the cool sunny days, the soft touch of the falling leaves, the gentle tapping of the rain on my windowsill. I’ll learn to love autumn, for what’s left? God has given me time, and I’m learning to love it, because it’s precious.

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Thank you for reading!