I'm not sure exactly when it happened. It was like walking back into a symphony after intermission and the orchestra was gone, the musicians had left and no one was around to tell me the concert had finished.
But there were no instruments save the wind that snapped my jacket open. I wrapped the jacket around myself and held it closed with crossed arms...still listening for the harmonies of crickets and katydids.
Nothing.
An owl's rhythmic ?who...who, whoo? played on wind's wings so it almost was imperceptible. Above, a faint blue smudge on black sky ? the Andromeda Galaxy.
There was no flickering of lights during the intermission, no nudges to return to the performance. Spring and Summer Symphony had left the stage for Fall's soliloquy ? a lonesome phantom unaccompanied by insect voices.
I stood hoping that perhaps I could hear one last voice, one lone, brave soul in this windy tempest ? no one.
Cheated, slighted.
No, hurried and harried ? I missed hearing the last note. Five months loom before new insect voices will audition to exploding greenery. How could I?
I went back inside and took my jacket off and looked in the mirror. I noticed a gray hair on my scalp. It was as long as the others and had apparently been there growing right alongside the brown. I missed its journey as well. Perhaps for the better; I may have truncated its life had I seen it earlier.
That which I wanted I missed, and that which I missed I no longer wanted...
Original source: http://scribbledmusings.wordpress.com/?p=13
