It was not petrichor, this scent of rain.
The path as I walked had previously
Been dampened by nocturnal showers.
The trees glinted with moisture,
And the sodden ground muffled my footsteps.
No, this was the balm of continued precip
That joined the falling leaves, the cooling winds,
And the shortening light
As messengers all of season’s change.
Glory in the mountains.
Glowing skeletons in neon hue
Jitter and jangle across the sky.
They fill the air with discordant shrieks
Underlaid with a cello drone.
The universe dances with them in mad lurch,
And autumn leaves rain to the ground.
They cover the mountains in fantastic garb,
Swirling in the chill breeze.
All this a presentiment: Winter fast approaches.
Do the trees laugh
To see their brightly hued leaves
Swirl on the wind
Then fall to form a glorious colorful carpet?
Do they mourn the loss
Of their seasonal raiment
That partially cloaks them
From over-curious prying stares?
Perhaps, like us, their response
Can be both or mixed or changeable.
I don’t understand the ways of humans.
I would never dare to presume with trees.
This is a time of abeyance,
A lacuna before the coming of fall.
The air shimmers with heat
And the low buzz of insects.
Rainfall offers little respite,
Only plangent noise.
How not to repine
And search for a proem
In cooler nights and darkening days?
Autumn seems the perfect setting for the latest (#15) Cork O’Connor book from William Kent Krueger. I like my settings to correspond, and so when I’m reading a novel that is set in the fall in a mountainous region, and I’M living in a mountainous region in the fall, it makes me oddly happy. Add to this that I read his previous book at this same time last year, and my OCD pattern yearnings are really satisfied! These things aside, the book is well worth reading, both as a stand-alone thriller but especially if you follow the series. There is a fast-paced plot with some interesting turns and twists. The characters that have appeared in previous O’Connor novels are here, plus a few new additions that we might be seeing later. The way Krueger writes about Minnesota’s Northwoods is itself reason enough to read his books-he truly makes the landscape an integral part of the story, and indeed it is part of the plot. This is a great book to take to bed as the leaves fall and the nights grow cooler!