The day after the wildfire smoke cleared and we could go outside again we sat out back with the lights on, wearing hoodies against the encroaching chill of autumn. We stared wordlessly into the creep of dark.
We knew as the night enveloped us, the hope we had so carefully tended and nurtured had withered into brittle leaves and moribund roots.
We pretend we simply feel nothing even as we know we still feel it all acutely. The spring of hope, the summer of shattered dreams, the coming fall and winter of dark and unknown. It presses down on us as the darkness presses the last reach of sun rays from the sky.