The days are getting measurably shorter now, albeit not by enough to match the other unseasonal changes on the wind.
Despite the heat, summer is leaving as it arrived: early and utterly equivocal about it. Autumn, meanwhile is eager to usher in the cold clear season, and while we could do with cooler air, it’s no longer so much clear as arid, the stuff of ash and bone and filed far too frequently with ash of the more literal sort.
On this day, though, the southern sky looks just as it did in the image above, a shot Wings captured near day’s end, and summer’s too. Back then, we still were granted sufficient rain for the giant sunflowers to grow, although by the time this was taken, the last of them had already begun folding in upon itself in anticipation of winter. It is one of the features of this place that, as the sun’s rays first begin to grow shorter, the sunflowers begin to bloom and dance;
This year, only the wild sunflowers have survived, and those are relatively few. What has thrived in spite of everything are the smaller suns: the cowpen daises, the golden asters, the greenthread and wild chrysanthemum. Our entire southeast field is yellow now, the daises having overtaken everything less hardy, and all the space, as well.
On this day, their golden waves are topped by a sea of bright but cloud-filled skies, pear white and dove gray piled on top of itself, towering above mountains already a shadowed blue. The wind comes in fits and starts, tossing the cottony puffs this way and that before settling into aa low percussive rhythm with the aid of the aspen leaves. The sun still shines, but the light is different now; we can see autumn already here in its angles, even if the calendar says otherwise.
Winter is not so far off now.
There is much to be done, and with every passing day, we lose a little more of the light.
Lose a few more petals, too.
But while we worry about the rain, and soon, the snow, the light, however diminished, remains constant in our world. And this is the promise of the sun: that as the sun itself recedes, the flowers that bear its name return . . . and looming winter notwithstanding, so, too, will the spirit of warmth and light.
~ Aji
All content, including photos and text, are copyright Wings and Aji, 2021; all rights reserved. Nothing herein may used or reproduced in any form without the express written permission of the owner.
