I found this in my draft folder, meant to send it out last month. So, here it is a little late.

Food posts are coming, not to worry, I haven’t changed the format of this blog. Rather I thought you might enjoy a change. We’ve had a few days of warm weather, in the 80’s F, unusual for this late in September. But this heat does not feel like summer heat. Cool is there as an undertone, very subtle, almost at the edge of consciousness.

I wrote this several years ago after walking my dog through a long alleyway between the houses in our Oakland neighborhood. Plot B is an unofficial off-leash dog path, a bower of trees about 4 blocks long. Dogs love it because there are squirrels to chase, fallen trees to jump over, and usually another dog to greet at some point along the trail. Unless you live in the neighborhood, plot B is a secret. To find it you must walk a narrow path between houses. Originally called plot B, for the past few years it has been called Oak Park. I still call it plot B, and that is how my dog knows it.

Plot B

Summer

Late afternoon

Sunlight slanting through dusty air

 

Tall trees on either side

Oak, bay, redwood, plum and fig

Climbing roses

Their branches meet above the trail

A green tunnel

And secret path

 

Birds call

Announcing riches

Of ripe blackberries in sunlit patches

Fallen plums

Wealth of weeds

Forgotten place

 

I miss your hand in mine

Together quiet observers

In this hidden wild place

Watching summer end

And fall begin

 

When I wrote it I was thinking about walking our old dog with my child, now grown. It was one of our favorite places to go in the late afternoon.

Please be kind, a poet I am not.

Happy change of seasons, no matter what your hemisphere.