Fall, the most gloriously transient, fleeting time of the year is most especially welcomed in South Texas. The brutal summer heat looses its' death-grip, afternoon sunshine falls like a golden benison, and the nights are cool and breezy. All over the city, is the echo of windows being opened, and the sounds of children's voices coming from the scratch game of toss or basketball at the end of the cul-de-sac is not masked by the roar of the air conditioning compressor fan.

Here, the leaves shred out gradually from the trees, not in a spectacular rush of color, not like the mountain aspens and sycamores in Ogden, when Blondie and I lived in Utah— a great golden blaze against the grey wall of the Wasatch Front— which lasted only a week or so, and fleetingly carpeted the ground with gold, like a vision of Tir nan Og or the mallorn wood of Lothlorien. Our winter here does not usually include snow either; not for us the vivid spectacle of a certain small maple tree, which grew next to the old base library at Misawa Air Base, and whose leaves in fall turned the color of blood and hang on to the branches for a good while, well after the first winter snows blanketed the ground in pure white. Dark red, long-fingered maple leaves blazed against the white sugar snow, one season into the next without a pause.

This last week has been a week of  perfect days, perfect shirtsleeve fall weather; warm in the sunshine, a hit of chill in the shade, perfectly balanced between the two seasons like the sulpher-yellow butterfly balanced on stalk of fuzzy purple Mexican sage blossoms. I walked around my neighborhood at midday, this weekend  -  so many people out mowing lawns, the chorus of suburbia must be the sound of a power mower, the scrape of a rake gathering leaves, the snick of clippers. A man out in the street expertly hurls a football to two boys who catch it, fumbling and toss it back to him; on another two boys and two girls are tossing a baseball across the street, from one sidewalk to the other.

The rituals of suburbia, the rites of the season, on that one perfect day between fall and winter; I ought to be at home, working on a manuscript editing job, putting together my Halloween costume for the Red Hat's meeting on Tuesday ...  But I linger outside, relishing this one perfect day, reluctant to go inside, not while the sky is a pure, clear blue arch over head, and the air is mild, and butterflies dance around the spires of sage.