October sunrise

The rising of the late October sun is leisurely, almost timid. “Excuse me,” it whispers apologetically as it slowly climbs the horizon to appear behind the line of trees to the east; school buses, garbage trucks and the employed have long exited the neighborhood before its tardy light comes at last through my window at 8:15.

Like a partying drunk on the morning after, this sun has lost its starch; it no longer shouts with the visual raucousness of July and August that daily threw me out of bed to sweat over the endless water-toting and weeding. There’s an half-heartedness, an almost apologetic embarrassment about this sunrise, as well there should be.

Its late summer vigor has left me to face coming fall with a garden of weeds, too many seed heads to clip and in general too much to do. It’s less a time of work than a time to stand, hands on hips, trying to formulate a plan: Where can I find the woodchips to renew the garden path? Should I prune that river birch? How many bulbs will go into the ground this year? Is it cool enough now to plant them? How many cosmos seeds do I need to save?

Fall is a time of savagery toward the plants of summer, a time to rip out the weak and destroy the lazy. You, there, spirea. Your performance was disappointing. Go to the back of the garden until you learn to behave properly. Sedum, you’re looking exhausted; I’m going to cut you for your own good.

Perhaps the sun is not weak after all; perhaps it is merely turning away from the carnage of those it has nurtured.

Copyright 2008 by Edith Flowers Kilgo. All rights reserved. May be used only with prior permission and attribution.