A Poem, a prayer, a meditation

It was the perfect walk, on this, the last day we will be in shorts and t-shirts for a while with a cold front bearing down on us.

The sun was up, but its light was diffused by low thin clouds so that the sky wore soft muted pastels of pink, blue, yellow and cream.

The street was quiet - only the distant sounds of traffic on the highway, the whistle of the 7:30 train, the murmuring of doves and songs of the morning birds combining for a Sunday morning symphony.

The park was empty, but not threatening.

We wandered down the dirt road where all was dead, dry and brittle and the birds flitted back and forth over us. We had hoped for deer, but must have missed them by minutes as we saw fresh tracks but heard no snorts and saw no white flags as animals bounded away.

Autumn has captured the park. Most of the trees, bare limbs reaching up, disclose secrets - seeds, abandoned nests, nuts, galls and mistletoe. The woods disclose themselves stripped of green and bloom. We could see beyond the tree line to hollows where deer must gather and predators wait. We heard chattering and saw a parade of squirrels running down a nearby trunk.

I took cuttings of the wafer ash for propagation. Even knowledge of the location of the plants along the winding part of our walk would have helped none had there not been wafers still clinging to the twigs, identifying them.

But then there was a flash of purple as a slight breeze moved the high dry grass. Two blooms of verbena struggled on against the end of warmth. Verbena, almost the first to bloom, ever steadfast through the hottest of days, still bloomed along our dirt road, still bloomed alone at the edge of the first meadow.

While the far meadow has been mowed, this first meadow was still high with dried grass giving creatures cover. I glanced up in time to see two does dance across the road and disappear into the brush. They did not seem frightened as they moved; it was more like they were skipping through the grass, enjoying the morning.

On the way out of the park I checked to see the progress of the clematis seedpods. The purple leather flower had bloomed so long, refreshed by our few rains, that there were series of the spiky pods along the vines. I have to catch them when dry enough to be fully matured, but not so dry as to have fallen off the vines. Other vines weaved though the bushes berry-covered, thorn-covered and possibly poison-filled. I tried to avoid all but the clematis.

The berried vines have provided contrast and color for weeks, going from green to scarlet to purple black. As children we were told that snakes eat these berries and I tread carefully knowing that there might be a few snakes about. Then I saw the only indication of snakes noted this year - a snake had shed its skin and abandoned it in the grass just below the seed harvest.

We exchanged a greeting and a comment on the weather to come with running man as he jogged into the park and we headed home. Then it was up the hill, past the chalk covered sidewalks, through the fallen leaves, into the neighborhood waking for this Sunday.