Revel

It comes on slowly - a yellowing leaf here, a ripening berry there, a cloudy day that cools the fire of late summer. Then, all at once, like an avalanche that's finally reached its tipping point, it hits. One day you're walking along the roadside, running your hand across the uncut grass, disturbing the locusts that are ever obliviously at play, and basking in the sun of a seemingly endless summer. The next, you walk out your door and find that it is fall.
There's a tingly magic in the air. The breeze flutters around your face, wafting smells of barbeque and campfires to your nostrils. The leaves rustle as they try to hold on for one last glorious tell-all show. The birds and insects even sound different - no longer do they hum carefree, instead their song has taken on a desperate note "Hurry! Hurry! Hurry! We've only got a few weeks left." But, most of all, there's an undefinable feel to the world, and you know. As surely as you know that the sun is in the sky, you know that fall has come.
It's weather that lures you outside on picnics. It calls to you to sit on the dock and share a pipe with an old friend. To seek the hidden muscadines, purple and swollen with sweet, tangy juice, and roll them about your mouth before executing that final, satisfying, pop.The stars cajole you to sit and talk to them during one more glass of deep, red wine. You feel the sudden urge to go barefoot and to lie in uncut meadows, simply breathing in the last hurrah of everything around you. The wind calls you to explore hidden nooks and crannies with it and the now-tempered sun begs you to bask in its fading warmth.Or, it glints and shimmers on the water "It's not too cold yet; one more joyous plunge before you say goodbye." it and the lake plead. Everything is ending, at least for a time, and it cannot bear the thought of not saying a last farewell to you.

Farewell Sunset, 2010

Soon, in a week or two, your very bones will cry out to you that you must prepare for winter. The flurry of  harvesting, canning, baking and making soups and breads to sustain the soul will soon overtake you. But, for these few glorious days as late summer becomes early fall, none of that matters and all you can do is revel in the glory that surrounds.