A moment

The sun is shining directly in my front window onto the table I'm sitting at. The trees have only a few ragged leaves waving; the theme is brown. Not the rich velvety brown of the crayon, but functional brown, in all its shades: tan and gray and white and black and a whole melange of orange, yellow highlights and red depths. They stand out against the sky, its pale whitish blue behind shadowed limbs, twigs like lace. The leaves wave like handkerchiefs, mourning the summer, like old ladies waving to the steamer carrying their grandchildren away to the New World, never to return. The sunlight is warm on the table, on my hands; I'm safe, staying here. But everything around me is changing. I am changing. The backs of my hands hold the same colors as the trees, not any one color but a little of all of them. The sky is there, too, in the veins. It's full of life.