Fire

From the house on Lake St. Catherine to Green Mountain College, the drive may not have been 20 minutes.  Past the golf course where the curve in the road made me grip the door handle, and the aged woman constantly fixing her rickety shack of a house.  The drive would take almost 40 minutes on that frosty October morning.  The previous night, through the blur of snow and wind and winding roads, it seemed to take an eternity.  This morning, we would not cross over the semi frozen lake, not today when my newly frostbitten toes were just regaining their consciousness.

Trees like waves of heat and sky the color of smoke.  If fall was here now, winter must be on its way.  Crisp winds cutting night that sound like echoes through train tunnels.  I did not understand what was meant by the "dead of winter" until I spent my first of the season in Vermont.  Strangely enough, fall is never as long as it is given credit; when leaves change from green to yellow orange, you know it will be over.  Soon the ground will be covered with the crunch of green and remnants of summer.