TheBanyanTree: Today

[NancyIee at aol.com]

It is a bright and sunny day. I just monitored the new pool, tested the water 
quality, added the stuff I needed to add.  Swept the entire house (thank 
goodness for tile)  walked the dogs, again. We had all eight spayed and neutered, 
and though they are ouchy this week, I am glad we had it done.  Even if I have 
to dab every tiny stitch with peroxide, and give each pain medicine, and walk 
them separately so they don't play and thereby perhaps hurt themselves.

It is finally cooling off here, Florida, which mean temps in the 70s rather 
than 80s and 90s.  A few of our deciduous trees are actually turning colors 
before shedding their leaves.  It rained the other night, so the grass is leaping 
upward again, and my orchids are sending out yet more bloom spikes.

Yet, as Fall does, even far away from those climes where the trees blaze and 
early snow frosts the branches, I get melancholy. It is not the early night, 
nor chill. It is not the fading of summer's lush greens.

It is something inward.  I remember Falls and children in piles of leaves.  I 
remember the tasks of taking down the dock and putting the boat away. I 
remember friends who are no longer here, my mother's hot cider with cinnamon, 
burning leaves along the curb of the street. I remember sitting before a fireplace, 
my father playing an old song on the piano.  I remember an old man who taught 
me how to play horseshoes, and his wife who loved the Lone Ranger. I remember 
a tire swing, and pressed flowers, and horses running across a creek.  I 
remember holding a small hand, or a bigger hand holding mine. I remember all the 
people I love who are far away.  I even remember the tiny dog, the butterfly, 
who graced my life for seventeen years.

Today is beautiful,. Tomorrow holds promise.

Yet . . . . I am so lonesome for . .something.