Shush

Autumn starts hot. Heat flares in the lanes, swells the hedge fruit. Reach around the orb spiders; pluck warm berries. Half ripe tang jumps a skip into a step. In the wheat field a yellow machine waddles. Thatch lines steam behind it. At the gatepost where the dead fox has dropped, bones bounce sunlight back through straggly grass. Silence: but for footsteps, but for the preoccupied machine, but for the contemplative chewing of cattle. Tilted head holds no thoughts, only acknowledges sun on skin. In sighs, wordless ordinary worries disperse.

Later, the kitchen fills with rice scent, coffee burbles, the twist of wine pouring. The sky moves from milky opal to pale dark. A flat moon disk slots into cloud. Pale seeps away; peaceable darkness remains.