It’s not quite time
to settle
into the coziness of darker days,
the smell of inside heat
while winds blow outside
and the sun comes just
in scattered, rapid glances,
and rain spatters
and there is no guilt
in staying inside all day

Now the squash have played their hands —
some will roll in flush and full to harvest,
some are banking on a longer season,
their fruits now small and hopeful and daring

And the heart race
of this span of opportunity
pulls me forward —
right to the edge of what I can know,
right to the hungering yearning urge
to keep leaping, one bound after another,
into open space.

©Wendy Mulhern
September 15, 2015