The autumn woodline

Running with a huff huff huff. Pat pat pat as my feet touch the path I have in the evenings.

As my routine persists, the seasons change. Now there’s scarcely sun in my time about.

There’s a field I pass, usually alight with sun and breeze, yet is a tad more somber lately.

The evening has come to the woods in my time, running. The sun withdraws as I make my rounds.

I’ve noticed the night is a tide that seems to seep from the earth. Daylight dims, leaving naught but the darkness to rule over the forest. The shadow starts at the base of the trees and spreads. Evening is like a vertical tide that slides up the lines of the wood’s edge, slowly saturating the entire forest in shadow. So too does the evening leech out from the forrest’s interior. It grows while the sun hangs low and joins the slow march of night as time tarries.

There’s a largely serious timbre to the woods in autumn twilight. There are no cheerful birdsongs. No buzzing of insects, even. It is as if the whole of the woods holds its breath for the return of the sun–the last measure of comfort in the colder atmosphere.

And yet, as winter approaches, the sun continues to spend less time in the path of the woods.

It’s too bad, but the forest knows the cycle–winter has come this way before. So I don’t make any apologies for the season. I’ll continue to watch the evening’s approach during my runs.

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