Attribution: Travellers1980, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
By Bill Stokes
Kickass, the doorstop dog, has been aware for some time that “time” frequently gets away from the keeper and he schedules so many things that some of them are not properly executed, such as his ceremonial goodbye to the September of 2023.
So on the last evening of September 2023 the keeper joined Phyllis out on their 5thfloor Vista West balcony with a medicinal brandy and watched a soft blanket of clouds drift out of the east and head west with lazy ambitions of catching the setting sun.
A lone crow flew close by and ignored the keeper’s “Hello crow! greeting.
Traffic down on Gammon lost its purposeful slog and there were not even echoes of the kids from the school playgrounds across the way.
A half dozen silent geese sailed off to the north, ignoring the keeper’s smart aleck advise to “get a compass!”
A city quiet ensued. September 2023 slipped away, never to return. Like all Septembers, it had been a great one.
If he could remember the lyrics, the keeper would sing to Phyllis:
“And the days dwindle down to a precious few. September. November. And these few precious days I’d spend with you……”
Photo by Bill Stokes