Yesterday, on one of those sullen pale gray days with flat light, Miss Sadie, the Cowboy and I set off on our errands. Kibble, laundry, balaton cherries in cider. Important stuff. The parking lot was busy at the IGA, where the flag whipped in the wind, making that clanking sound. It billowed out full, halfway up the flagpole. We ran into Bob and Joanna Hicks, and Bob reminded me-twice-that today would be his birthday. And so it is, and I wish him a happy one and many returns.
Up the road at Royal Farms, Sarah Maguire was putting the final touches on a colorful late-summer display. Inside it was bright and cozy and pie-scented. Outside the flag clanked away at half mast.
Same thing at Friske’s, where we laid in a supply of balaton cherries in cider against the winter. Clank-clank. Clank-clank.
Over in Central Lake, while the sheets tumbled in the dryer at the Wash Basket, we watched turkey vultures circle over Hanley Cove. They floated in the gray sky, spiraling up and out, then returned—the cleanup crew for Mama Nature. I wondered what died, or was going to. The dying is always there. Mostly we don’t think about it. There’s kibble to buy, and laundry to do, and dogs to walk, and friends to greet.
Life goes on, but we remember.
Torch Lake Views 
Leslie Smyers in Australia
September 12, 2008
My goodness, I still can’t believe that it is your Fall season over there.
I so enjoyed following your summer during my cold Canberra winter.
It is warming up here now at long last. 🙂
Jane Louise
September 14, 2008
Gerry, check this website, and read his poem on Sept. 11. He is a fine, caring human being, and restores my faith in all that is good about America: The Quaker Agitator.
[Ed.: Quaker Dave’s poem, Breath of Life, was “inspired by the story told in October, 2001 on NPR by a Native American iron worker who had helped to build the World Trade Center, who was then called in to help remove the remains of the Twin Towers after September 11, 2001.”]
Jane Louise, thank you for sending this link.
— Gerry