Summer's End

Brought Maggie to the airport this morning. International terminal, United Flight 954. Everything felt the season turn. Brian and Malcolm bid teary farewells by 7 and left the house without their usual banter, carrying more on their shoulders than backpacks. At 7:45, Kirk tipped back a last cup of coffee and departed for Ukiah. Their goodbye hug stretched well past where they normally leave off. It'll be a month til we see him again, which feels as long as the shadows stretching past the oaks near the driveway, but a blink compared to the three months she'll be gone. Did I mention the cat puked on the new doormat? And the dog snuck up on the couch? I didn't care; I could have used a good wretch and a soft spot to ease the emptying of what was a full and frantic summer. In the hour before we left, I showered and dressed as Maggie sipped her tea and read the comics, packed a few last minute items, put on her make-up, fashioned a couple of earrings out of bottle caps and wire, collected her stack of library book returns, arrayed dirty laundry and wardrobe rejects over her bedroom furniture and floor, printed out some sheet music, and emailed a few friends. That's Maggie; that's the tambourine she taps against her jeans as she moves through our lives. Hours have passed since I walked back into the house, which is now a cavern. The only sound I've heard all day is the occasional acorn plunk against the roof. Plunk! Plunk-plunk. Roll-roll-roll. And at the rooftop's edge, nobody hears my heartbeat stop. It is the sound of summer's end. Of children reaching the rooftop's edge. Of others fleeing to far-away-lands to find their way. Their acorns litter my sloping hillside. I've lost count. The temperature drops. The sun tilts back. And the treetops slouch against the fog's sigh.