Fall in Maine

Fall came to town this morning. I woke, as always, without alarm at 6:30, and made coffee. I checked the temp: 61.5 degrees. Very nice. The sun had moved and was again rising over Bug Light. Like that, like the snap of the fingers, fall had usurped summer’s pole position. Ushered out are the crowds of people queued up on Commercial Street for the Odyssey, whale watching boat, nothing left but cigarette butts on the sidewalks. Tonight, I notice that it is dark at 8:30. Tonight the fog horn announces its warning over the water, a mark skimming across the harbor to my chair, the door to the balcony open as I sit hoping that summer will yet grace us again with its presence, that the earth has not slipped on its axis so fast and so pronounced without notice, that the end is not that more familiar.