On Saturday, the tropical storm comes closer, transforming the morning air into the ocean, blowing the leaves of the trees back and upright like little green sails.
A breeze furrows through the house like high tide.
The northwestern sky is periwinkle blue, but a bilge of dark gray is cutting through from the south. I keep the kitchen door open and the copper pans resound like gong buoys.
The barometer brings with it the first cool weather, flooding August off like an unreachable, insufferable island. Our noisy window units, on a rich diet of Kilowatts all month long, are silent.
Between the houses the light is patchy and changeable. August was monochromatic, motionless, run aground—but in these first days of September we lurch then ride a small current forward.
A lusty but casual relationship, summer took too long to end—I'm glad it's over.
But I think I'll remember one week in July—our cottage right on the bay, the lobster boats gliding on the flat aquamarine surface, the ice cold water splashing over my legs—for a long time yet.
