A Fall Day: Sitting on a Park Bench in Saskatoon

The most perfect fall day I could hope for:  air just a hint cooler than the warmth of the sun, holding its solitary position in cloudless blue; the breeze only whispering at my skin and gently urging leaves of yellow trees to dance and twirl their way to grass still green as a summer day in July. The park is full of walkers and joggers, pacing off their noontime respite from stuffy cubicles or heated words behind boardroom doors.

It’s a wonderful day to be a visitor with no schedule or agenda except to sit and watch people pass, listen to the sounds of a motorized city fade beneath the honks of five V’s of Canadian geese stretching across the sky, they and their familiar sound disappearing southward.

I smell mustard in the air … only a hint, but it’s definite … the combined scents of turning leaves or, perhaps, it wafts from the hot dog stand (housed in an old red double-decker bus) on the corner of 21^st and Spadina …

Time passes now, with the etching of my pen. The park has lost its midday companions, yet the hum of life remains in a host of trees, sighing umber and red; the steady ripple of the river’s flow; the crackle of fallen leaves pushing along the joggers’ path as if they have minds of their own, places to go other than back to the earth, the slow decay that touches everything – even this heart of mine, joyful in its beating, like it should last forever.