-This poem reflects on the scent and haze of a distant fire as a subtle late summer signal, where the approaching change of season is sensed before it is fully seen.
It comes before the source is seen,
a faint blue veil above the trees,
the scent of wood in morning air,
drifting softly through the fields.
Somewhere beyond the orchard road,
a small fire gathers branch and brush,
while here the smoke moves thin and slow,
through sunlight warming on the grass.
It does not darken all the sky,
or ask the day to turn away,
it only leaves a trace of change,
a little autumn in the air.
So much of late summer lives here,
in signals carried from afar,
the season telling us in smoke,
what light has whispered all along.