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Summer's End by Sharmagne Leland-St. John I rue these chilly mornings when the leaves rustle in the trees, pop, then cover the mossy ground with rainbows. When the salmon rise to catch the fly the last hatch of summer and I know I must soon be going home to California where there are no seasons other than earthquake, fire, flood, drought and riot. Where I'll sorely miss the snow-capped glaciers the plein air backdrop to my everyday summer life the lake and river dotted landscapes I have come to cherish. The farmland's derelict barns reminiscent of the colourful jigsaw picture puzzles spread out on our oak dining room table month after month year after year when I was a child growing up in a small Quaker town with streets named after our founding fathers. A child raised in a city with concrete sidewalks the only grass, the lawns at school or at Penn Park No fields of alfalfa, no rich pasture lands, no meandering trout streams. just an Arroyo Seco to remind us of where water once abundantly flowed. Was it a longing in my DNA memory, a déja vu or race remembrance that made me fall in love with the land of my ancestral birth the pine forests the tumbleweed prairies east of the mountains the whaling villages on The Puget Sound? Or was the love potion just the easy laid back days of summer and the frog-song filled evenings lulling me into easy sleep each balmy summer night?
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