The world is tipping towards darkness, where the moon, when she’s not covered with clouds reigns, and Orion throws his thigh over the eastern horizon. He mounts the sky when we are doing chores, though I’ve seen him tipped and bright out our bathroom window at 2 a.m. on nights I work at falling back asleep. Sometimes we hear an owl in the tree outside our window, her song a low, mournful, otherworldly bass.
I have been frightened walking to the barn. We have seen large paw prints tracking through the yard. Some dark spirit swells and billows. The porch lights don’t help. When the feral cat scrambles into the hay mow, more wild than squirrels, he startles me as I pull open the door. The mare nickers.
But these October nights, the trickster coyotes are silent, even when the train sings. This month we celebrate monsters and ghosts, sweeten them with candy. We grieve the dead. We remember the saints. Leaves burst with color, dancing one last dance as they settle to the ground.
The world is tipping towards darkness, towards long nights, towards cold. The world is tipping towards a different country than we knew when the days oozed well into the night and sun slapped red squares on the hallway waking us at five am. The world is tipping toward lament and winter quiet, winter sleep, as it should.
Evening, morning, and noonday, I complain and lament. The Lord hears my voice.
I’m Katie Andraski and that’s my perspective.
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