All Saints Day

“Mom? Why did Jesus have twelve opossums? I mean, what did he do with them?”

— Lizzy Beck

This morning during my walk with Jinx, I was struck by how absolutely silent the world was. My own steps were the only sound in the pewter air. It was almost easy to believe that last night the air had been full of ghosts and spirits of ill-will, because the early Sunday hours were so clean, so spotless, so purified. Surely all the saints were watching as I crunched gravel beneath my boots and Jinx’s tail cut the air like a buggy whip.

Into my mind came the opening line of Poe’s The Fall of the House of Usher —“a dull, dark, and soundless day in the autumn of the year…” — but I didn’t pursue the thought, because Halloween is over, and state, county, and Federal law prohibits me from reading or quoting West Point’s most infamous alumnus until next October.

***

I looked beneath some leaves and branches, and as we made our way back home I composed this haiku in my mind:

Caterpillar lies
Down in  his gray chrysalis,
Thinks it’s his last day.

And I wondered, as I do most mornings, when my last day will arrive. Is it today? Could be. Will it be many years from now? Possibly. I try not to give too much credence to feelings that are not true strong intuition, but within me I do detect that when I ponder my own passage from this life to the next, the feeling has transitioned from one of mere waiting to one of anticipation.

***

The other day when I awoke from an unintentional nap, these words were whispering in my mind:

Herman searched for pale corduroy trousers while Eddie hunted the doe who had informed on him.

Ah, crap. I do believe I just broke at least one of those laws…

***

The wind has been very restless since last night and has stripped a good portion of the leaves from the branches. I noticed while driving home yesterday that the waterfall near our farm is again visible from the road, the sheltering maples and oaks having been denuded.

Last night, while the ghosts were still having their way with the night air, Jinx and I went out into the back yard, and he did something unusual.

There is a triangular patch of ground next to the small barn where I had cleared away some brush and some detritus from a wooden swing. The area is now completely bare of all grass. Jinx trotted to it, then stood on the bare earth like a statue, staring at me. I approached him, careful not to shine the flashlight in his eyes. When I got within a few feet, the light picked out the leaves on the ground. The wind had somehow blown some of the larger ones — tulip poplar and linden — into an almost perfect circle, about four feet across. Jinx was standing precisely in the center of the circle, utterly motionless. I called him twice before he came out of the fugue-ish state and bounded ahead of me to the house.

Once we were inside and I had tended the fire and settled back into my chair, Jinx jumped up from his bed near the wood stove and ran into the office. He stared into the southwest corner exactly as our beloved Bonnie had done on several occasions, including the time when I faintly heard a child’s laughter and Bonnie had erupted into terrified barking. Just outside the corner of the house where Bonnie had stared and where Jinx was staring last night was the place where a toddler died many years ago.

Jinx never barked, but his body was like stone, just as it had been outside within the mysterious circle of leaves. It took him some time before he rejoined us in the family room. And we were watching him carefully the entire time.

There are more things in heaven and earth….more things, indeed.

***

It will get down to about 28F tonight, and tomorrow’s high is forecast to be no higher than 48F. The fall is truly here, and Tuesday’s election draws closer, and I wonder about omens and portents and ill winds. My mind is not quiet, neither find I any rest.

~ S.K. Orr