Monday, 8am. As I cut up plums for the oatmeal this morning, the back yard is lit with patches of bright sun. After most of an hour has melted into morning activities, Tiger approaches with prancing, whining, a little playfull cavorting that says, "enough, mom--let's go!" As we head out of the driveway, Tiger pulls to the east, but I nudge her to the west. Zeno seems pretty spry this morning, walking with an easy slow gait.

Gazing down Ainsworth, there is the three quarter moon, like a white sail in the sky, and just to it's right a great maple tree, bedecked with it's reddish orange seeds, stands alongside her--a sturdy, regal companion. A golden SUV passes the three of us, and the cool sweet morning air is colored briefly with a sour smell of exaust. All of the colors are so bright this morning. There is a tree whose name I need to learn, with little orange berries, next to the maple. Soon I am walking past my neighbor's pear tree. The pears are large, and must be ripening quickly, with our dry and cooling fall weather. So many fruits lie on the ground.

Zeno is walking so easily with us that I continue down to where Ainsworth curves north to 42nd. Next to a fence are some lovely low plants whose one orange seed are held in a casing resembling a little orange lantern. After we cross 42nd, the dogs and I are on "sidewalk" territory again. Ten thousand sparkling lights rest in a neighbor's grey-green carpet of grass. I turn back so I can slowly walk past this wondrous sight of dew-drops once more. Each little drop contains every rainbow color. As I savor this quiet beauty, the owner approaches slowly down his driveway, waiting for me to pass. What hidden beauties could this older person reveal, if we were to sit quietly next each other on the grass? Our lives are brief, and some have likened them to the blazing drops of dew, so quickly extinquished by the morning's approaching heat.

I was so lucky to have become acquainted with one of my mom's true and lasting friends (since heady college days in the thirties.) Some time after my mom passed away last summer, this friend dropped some lines of the Bard lightly into a telephone conversation:
Fear no more the heat o' the sun,
Nor the furious Winter rages
Thou thy earthly work hast done
Home art gone and ta'en thy wages . . .
--William Shakespeare, Cymbelline


At the off-leash area, Zeno & I stroll a little, and Tiger charges off to play other canines.