autumn. rain dances. on the windshield. some say it is a harbinger. i say it is a painterly grace, a suggestion of light and space from somewhere beyond. leaves are there, but the mind does not know them. what it does know is its own sorrow. emotion implicated in smears of color. grief that feels too infinite to contain. yet my body holds it all. this is vocation. sitting here with the motor shut down. my hands silent. wind shaking the car.

Photograph by Alison Deland Scott
