I was inspired by another blog post to write about mornings in autumn.
It’s dark when we wake up, this time of year. Sometimes, I go out before the chickens are up. I come into the chicken coop, and they are all still sitting on their perches. They see me and look down for a good spot to jump down to and start their daily routine of poking around outside all morning, then taking a nap under the tall weeds around noon.
The rooster, belligerent that I have announced the morning before he did, hastily crows a “Cock-a-doodle-do,” looking askance at me like, “I was going to do it! Why are you rushing me?”
Sometimes, after the bus takes Big Z away, BAH and I go for a walk up the road. The sun is just rising over the hills. The leaves are all changing. A mist floats around us, as though Dracula himself will materialize. He might just become visible, only for a moment, a shimmering form in the haze of morning. And then, he will disappear as quickly as he came. We will be left to wonder if he was ever there at all.
Just like these October mornings will disappear, soon enough. But for now, they remain, shimmering in the haze.
(The last photo was taken by Brian Marohn.)
Having once been in your Edenic valley in October, I concur with your sentiments.
Funny that you thought of Dracula. Had he been present, even as motes of dust, I believe your chickens would have been clucking in terror. He had that effect on animals. And yet women allowed him to bite their necks.