Change of Season

Change of Season

Dark-eyed Susans on the roadside’
Pumpkins in the fields;
Wood smoke in the air;
Leaves turning color on the trees;
Shorter days;
Longer nights;
Changes on the lifting breeze.

Our time;
Hunkering down;
Drawing inward;
Remembering.

Melancholy settles around my shoulders
Like a well worn sweater;
Ragged;
Torn;
Comfortable;
Familiar.

I know this place;
Visited here before;
The stay will not be long.

Gone as the dry leaves
Skittering across a broken sidewalk
Pushed by bony fingers
Of a chilled Halloween wind.

I’m OK;
Grounded in the present;
Living in the now;
Just old skeletons
Rattling
In the dusty closets of the past.

Yet……
Hot tears flow at sweet memories;
His dear face;
The touch of his lips on mine;
The scent of his skin while in warm embrace;
Burnished indelibly in my heart.

The gentle touch of a hand
Brings me back;
Light in twinkling blue eyes
Quickens the slowed beating
Of my heart.

I smile
At the gift
Of love…
Old
And
New.

Outlaw 9/16/2005


In the latter years of our life together Jim always saved a couple of weeks of his vacation for our time together in the fall when the children were all in school and the hectic pace of summer had slowed.

Roaming cemeteries to complete family histories, pouring through archives in neighboring towns, day trips to “our” mountain just for the day enjoying the time spent doing not much more than nothing…as long as it was together.

And, then there was Halloween.

The man loved Halloween above all holidays that were celebrated en La Casa Hacienda del Outlaw. Even when the children were young he scheduled a week of vacation to decorate the yard the way most folks around here do for Christmas.

Starting in August, he poured over servos and pneumatics to power the coffin lids, inflating lungs, beating hearts and what have you that dotted the yard and porch. The week of found him on ladders and hanging from tree limbs to place the cobwebs “just so”.

Floating apparitions, tombstones, black lights, dry ice and scary soundtrack…all a necessary part of the night’s entertainment.

He’d dress like Frankenstein’s monster and answer the door with that sweet, slow southern drawl….”Mastah…children at the door…are any required for experimentation this evening?”…sending the children into squeals and laughter.

Over the years the neighboring children knew “Mr. Jim’s” was THE place to go for the best treats of the night. They’d stop by the week prior, down on haunches, babbling questions, “oooooh and ahhhhhh” over the latest creations as well as the familiar standards.

He shop for candy like Christmas presents….picking out what he thought the kids would like….CHOCOLATE. We’d have enough left over to keep him jacked up for weeks after finishing it up “before it went bad.”

The children and the parents who remember from their visits miss him as Halloween rolls around and the yard remains empty with only the porch light evidencing the probability of sweets.

I miss it and I miss him most at this time of year…our time.

Thus comes the melancholy as the season changes. I know it will not last long and I no longer fight the effects...it will soon enough be gone.