.

yesterday was born of a fine mist,
a diaphanous veil that slowly slipped
sideways, a curtain of fog invading
windows from far off but it was also
the mournful repetition of a passing
ship, a horn that trailed the line
of a lake obscured by gondola
grey.

such a little word, lake. even `great lake`
doesn`t begin to convey the concept of
immensity nor vastness of volume in
retreat, this backwards shoreline
known here only as `the escarpment`
is filled with blessed immensity; all
the fresh water one could ever want
is what this region represents.

waterfalls abound, and hiking trails that
transverse shale and limestone, that frame
the ridge of a once larger lake now silently
saturated with ancestral history, and all
this is laced by the countless waterfowl
who grace these shores for home and
respite. they are the ones who lift life
up as high as the skies from one winged
season to the next and bring to a close
this busy one of nestings and moltings.

this shore fits precisely beneath a major
migratory flight path and teems with activity
four times a year. but between seasons,
night skies come alive with flight, thousands
passing overhead, living on the wind, and
most of them move unnoticed by earth-bound
urban-suburban dwellers who rarely look
up and never really listen to the night skies.


but these particular bay shores offer an
invitation for respite from an arduous-airborne
journey. fall is a funnel of wings that prefaces
their journey north and to fully understand
this place one needs to live here for awhile,
take root in every successive season rather
than visiting for a few short weeks to know
the direct correlation between culture and
geography. life in our cities masks that
connection to land that we are all ancestrally
hard-wired for. but when an early September
breeze blows across the lake at night, when
one feels it light on the skin, that gentle
warm-cool air that heralds change in a
Leibnizian sense, one grasps the true
acquiescence of spirit to place, a sense
inseparable from this great lake`s night
skies.

only someone who has lived this season
many times over can really understand
the meaning of its approach. but last night,
with bare toes on rocks and stars at my
fingertips, I heard its pre-flight symphony
in the trees, wind and song all tangled up
to the rhythm of three words in my head,
their ergodic loop and eternal return, sad
mantra for its inbetweenness ... and I heard
it with all the beauty that change inspires,
I heard `fall is coming, fall is coming`.