Autumn is in full bore and the leaves are coming down. I traveled yesterday and said to a friend that I must be crazy because I love the darkness of rain in the fall. I think it must be some atavistic cultural memory, something from my peasant history. I take care of my ox in the growing rain. I sing to my dog. So what the winter is coming? I have my animals. Meanwhile, in the heavens, the moon is preparing for snow. The wild geese fly against the wind.
The poet Theodore Roethke once wrote: “What’s winter for? To remember love…” I think autumn is to remember the rightness of being alive, it’s proper proportions. Rain at the windows and the willow tree swaying are a marvel. We bring the last of the flowers inside and arrange them. We take care of the imaginary ox in the barn. We worry in a small way about the crickets. Dark night, the clouds black as the roads and in the morning the catalpa tree hangs its heavy head. Strange to say I feel good. Come spring no one will recognize me.
S.K.
Planet of the Blind 
In L.A., the marine layer moves deeper inland in the Autumn. Last night as we sat in our grimy silver Matrix in front of New Beverly Cinema waiting for a battery jump from All City Tow with probably one of the last surviving British-American WWII vets in the whole wide world sitting ever vigilant in the front passenger seat, we watched multitudes of Hasidic families with the men in their dark, dark suits and big, black hats stream by us in high spirits after the last night of Sukkot, and marveled as the searchlight of the endlessly circling LAPD helicopter cast an eerie glow in the deepening mist.
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