Marching On Into Fall

Today's riding mowers and weed eaters shaving the perching places at Lake Cheston tell the tale: students and their parents are arriving, breaking the idyll between summer's programs and academic year. I feel flattened each year at this time; like the mostly eaten armadillo on the rocky shore, my plates give way, revealing the tenderest parts susceptible to upsets of noise, traffic, litter.

 

Small prices to pay, given the vigor of youth and intellectual exploration bursting like the trumpeting Virginia meadow flowers in the shadows.