The turning of the year

My birthday came and went. Students are back in school. New teachers, exciting new grades for each of our kids. The undergraduates invaded campus in force. It used to be that they looked younger every year. Now, they've reached an equilibrium, a permanent state of young adulthood, as that point recedes so far from my age that it has become fixed. No longer can I pass, can I pretend that that wasn't so long ago for me, that I can remember or appreciate their concerns.

Church choir started up again. Some new faces, some goodbyes to old. In a couple days, I'll go to church again too. To sing, to laugh. It's good to be back.

Another year has come and gone. The light shortens. The weather cools. My wife has turned on the heat in the house. The crop remains in the fields are still green, but mottled golden. The moon rose full last night, almost bright orange against the deep blue evening sky, hanging low over the lights of the train tracks. Harvest moon. In summer, we'd never see the dark, we'd be inside before it fell. Soon, it's the light we'll never see. At the equinox, the balance is exact, but I don't follow it on the calendar, instead it's the character of the air outside which reminds me of what the calendar must be saying. Indeed, it's the character of the air which led our ancestors to create calendars in the first place, to mark on sticks what they reexperienced every season. I have a calendar, and computer programs to calculate the seasons to six decimal places, but I don't use them, not for that. The air tells me all I need to know.

Summer's almost gone. Winter's almost here.