The Promise

Watching from a place high atop the prairie, noticing the departing rays of sundown, how they leave a violet glowing upwards into darkness, star-dotted and magical, and voluptuous with a promise …

While down below on blackened earth, the stadium lights glimmer far away, this night so reminiscent of other Autumn nights—and prescient too, as slowly stirring winds whisper once again of Autumn and the promise …

Small-town football and shivery air … the homecoming queen’s tiara … her perfume … honeysuckle, she said … and sad beguiling, fumbling love in the glow of a dashboard radio, and songs now bitter-sweet and best forgotten … and dirt roads and wind in brittle leaves … and moonlight in the clouds and half-remembered dreams, and always the promise, the promise of Autumn and something out of reach …