…the golden hour of the clock of the year.
Everything that can run to fruit has already done so:
round apples, oval plums, bottom-heavy pears,
black walnuts and hickory nuts annealed in their shells,
the woodchuck with his overcoat of fat.
Flowers that were once bright as a box of crayons
are now seed heads and thistle down.
All the feathery grasses shine in the slanted light.
It’s time to bring in the lawn chairs and wind chimes,
time to draw the drapes against the wind,
time to hunker down.
Summer’s fruits are preserved in syrup,
but nothing can stopper time.
No way to seal it in wax or amber;
it slides though our hands like a rope of silk.
At night, the moon’s restless searchlight sweeps across the sky.
~Barbara Crooker “And Now it’s October” from Small Rain.

I do try to stopper time.

I try every day on this page,
not to suspend time or render it frozen,
but like flowers and fruit that wither,
I want to preserve these moments –
a few harvested words and pictures
to sample some chilly day.

I offer it up to you now,
a bit of fragrance,
to sip of its sweetness
as it glows, luminous in the bottle.

Let’s share.
Leave it unstoppered.
The passage of time
is meant to be preserved this way.