October Haze Over the Lake

I was on the phone last night, pacing back and forth outside my apartment building.

There was no agony. Bliss with weather, with evening. Likely to lose the call in the elevator I remained outside having stilled. I pulled fall plantings through my hands gently noting the new mums, ornamental peppers, cabbages, and grasses added to the landscaping. I sat, near a tree growing up out of a cement surrounding.

A leaf fell on my head. I jumped, thinking a bird had been above.

No bird. Just this tree, finished with another day. The conversation on the phone was not disturbed.

I picked up the leaf that had fallen on my head, carried it into the building after the conversation had ended; it's here--now--drying on my desk.