Late Afternoon Light

from my booklet “words within 2018”

Late afternoon light, facing East
with deep Japanese Maple and Rhododendron shadows on the
weather beaten wooden slat fence.
the wind turns on and off
(like a kid with a light switch) - just for fun
sending the leaves twirling on their stems
some leave their stems

the sky has a late summer haze on
its' thin gauze petticoat over blue
and not any well formed cloud in sight

the angle of the bright Aug. sun at 6:21 is markedly steeper than a month ago
it’s become evident we are, 
not only, on the waning side
of this years' heat wave
but also
on the waning side of summer

still in the passage of grieving, still moments of reflection
still our family of friends...now minus the two patriarchs,
still absorbing the energy of those gathered, days of story telling,
a lifetime of memories, with pictures in hand,
reviving the legends of lives that started before we were born,
still smell flowers on the tables where a hundred gathered,
to informally account for the past, two lives
that continue through our visual compilations and verbal retelling,
as the shadows lengthen on this year