Barely Autumn

by David Thornbrugh

Barely autumn. Leaves chase after buses down busy avenues, and sunlight stretches thinner to reach between buildings. On Puget Sound, a fingernail of white sail dwarfs a lugubrious tug as it slides toward a pier. Behind, a high-riding freighter slips slowly across the backdrop of the mountains. At mid-afternoon, the light holds haze in its clear fingers like a bride appraising veils, not yet committed. I sit behind towering glass watching the ferries come and go, rolling out and absorbing candy-colored cyclists, leather- pelted bikers, the unencumbered walkers-on. I watch the cars in their orderly rows roll aboard, the big rigs belch and lurch. Seagulls glide by, swiveling their heads to take in the view, to see the spectacle laid out below us like a diorama behind glass depicting how humans lived in a distant time, or the ebb and flow of a great battle. Barely autumn, and the dust of our endless actions hangs in the city air waiting for winter, waiting for the storms that must come.