Time descends like a wave from the mountains

Oh, do not tell me that this is the last hike of the season; I do not wish to hear it. I am only human, I want to make my own seasons. I want to stand in opposition to the year’s nightfall, I want to defy time. I will drag my cold bones out into that glittering winter; I will fill my lungs with that wakeful, stinging air. Let me deny the vulnerability of my body, let me summit the austere mountain. Time is impervious and I am not; but I can forget it in foolhardy defiance. And Mother Earth humors my illusions; she has been gentle with me, her impudent child. By her grace, I may feel that I have conquered the intractable forces, that I stand tall as a god atop the earth.

In the city, the season lingers. I note today how it’s only now that most of the treetops in Central Park have lost their green. For once, New York is not rushing. Only a smattering of the trees are bare, a handful of brown-branch blooms amidst a waving sea of ambers. They are the hurried ones, the harried ones, plowing ahead of time. Shedding everything in retreat. What are they rushing towards? Are they the fearful, the cautious, wary of being caught unaware, unprepared? They shelter early, conserve their energy while they still have some to spare.

Time descends like a wave from the mountains. Time falls like night across the sky. New York, ever defiant, holds steady. Sun sets on the season but the leaves are still out, dancing in the golden hour.