There’s a pile in my closet: a skirt too small, a shirt too stained, pants too worn. They wait, expectantly, for a transformation, for deft scissors and clever thread, a re-imagination of grace. But I hang in the moment between the death of the old and the birth of the new, hesitating between despair and fear….
The abundance of plums won’t be harvested easily. Not a child anymore, I grasp the branches, hoisting myself with one grunting pull up into the leaves. Cobwebs cling to my hair and face, dead branches scrape at my arms, a few drawing blood. I steady the small containers, balancing them just so, willing them not to tip. Like myself, they are inadequate to the task: simple tupperware, available, sturdy, but too small, too tall, not quite right. Snapping off some…
Autumn is creeping in. Here, she forgoes the loud parade: the trees unfurling their flags in bold reds, yellows, and oranges; the trumpet blasts of football crowds the twirling of rakes, the gentle music of crisp leaves, skittering and scraping along the sidewalks and streets. Instead, the nights grow slightly cooler — perhaps we’ll need the doona tonight. The tomato plants are turning brown — next to them, the pumpkin vine squirms, waiting for me to uproot its neighbor and…