Theblues are getting deeper and the oranges on...

Theblues are getting deeper and the oranges on the either side of day. A child onthe street is counting down from ten. I can hear him because the windows areopen because it’s already almost seventy degrees, here on a Sunday morning inNovember. I walked outside after I woke up and the air was soft and balmy, butit did not feel like spring. The quality and slant of light, the sycamore leavesrattling against the curbs, the ghosts around. Earlier dusks, starting today. Six, five, four, this charged atmosphere of countdown.

[Photograph: Trustee Room with Fireplace by Shellburne Thurber, 2002.]