Month By Month

September

Dear Gentle Rainfall,

How I've missed you! How I've missed the gathering hushes, the mild-mannered dark. I've missed the way the pond ripples in the rain as if in laughter. I've missed feeling—I don't quite know how to put it. Welcome, maybe.

Yes, I feel welcome.

Though you are scarce begun, September, I feel part of this land once again; I am almost an equal to the low-fanning ferns, or to the wrens that wake before the sun each morning. In August I felt not only a stranger to myself, but to the peaks around me and the grass under my feet.

It's like I've come home after a long, lethargic journey. The burn lines across my body soften at the promises of approaching cold.

I wonder what is happening in the town I fled. Have all the peaches have fallen yet? Have the children have gone back to school? I hope the boats have docked at the marina, each one safely returned from summer sailings. He loved to fish in the far seas.

I am sorry, I must go. The first red-winged blackbird has sung again. I feel a good cry coming on.

September, the month when I would heal.