Warmth belies a cool that hides behind afternoon sun, an autumnal visitor quivering beneath unseasonable temperatures.  I stand in shorts and sandals while heating rays blanket me.  Ah, but I know. . .yes, I know.

Nature’s way of reminding us about the season rests on surprise.

As we scurry about our evening business and settle in to home and hearth for a night of restless sleep before the morning’s too soon return, a change is coming, one already quite near and cloaking its approach in normalcy.  Only the wind will reveal its arrival.

Something in me feels like prey waiting for the predator’s ambush, waiting for talons or claws or teeth to leap over the horizon with ferocity.  Perhaps that’s the thrill of such sudden shifts in the weather.  Well, at least for me.

In a place I cannot see stands the unavoidable difference between today and tomorrow.  Only when its brusque hands caress me with northerly gusts will the beast finally be upon the land.

Until then, a near yet distant star hangs lazily in the southwestern sky, a dim brightness hardly comparable to its summertime intensity.  Beneath it a still cover lies atop an unsuspecting world, one where creatures play and rest in tepid waters of air.

Not for long, though.