The Last Sunday of September

It's late afternoon. I'm sitting with LittleOne on the stairs to the back deck, looking out at the garden, the sky, the world. 

Indi-girl, our beloved pupper, lies in the grass, relaxed and watchful in the way of all doggies the world over. 

The sun has dipped low behind the trees; our western horizon is stained light gold and the tall shrubs on the neighbour's side of the fence are a lattice silhouette of stems and leaves. Above our heads, the sky has gone that colourless grey-white shade, while in the east, the same sky-ceiling is exhaling into a light lilac.

Directly in front of us, at the bottom of the garden, the poinciana tree (which, for years, I only knew by their local Mauritian name of Flamboyant trees) holds above its head a mix of fragile-thin twig and strong branches, tiny light-green leaves clustered together in fern-like fingers, and big, long, sometimes-wavy seed pods which are longer and fatter than a ruler. It is a canopy which sits above its smooth trunk like a perfect umbrella. The poinciana is all in shade now. So is the nearby skinny jacaranda. And the neighbours' nearby palm trees too. 

In another corner of the garden, reaching up beyond the garden shed, the mulberry tree is also in the shade. It has tall, slender branches reaching straight up to the sky and big, saucer-sized green leaves that wave in the breeze and hide the mulberries of unripe pale green and red and ripe black that are high-up out of reach. You could imagine tying bedsheets to those tall skinny branches and pretending to be in a sailing ship. 

In a garden 2-3 houses away, a tall tree with some kind of fuzzy, mossy yellow flower is the only one we can see that is still being bathed in watermelon light of the sun.

A passenger plane goes overhead, its belly also tinted watermelon-rose. It has become an unusual sight this year. As is our custom, LittleOne and I wave to the plane and wish it 'safe travels'. 

Our resident pair of Butcher Birds, re-named 'Bushy Birds' by LittleOne, flit busily around the garden, catching their supper. One lands on the old Hills Hoist laundry line and the other perches on the garage roof and in front of us, they sing their loud, bright songs to each other, before focusing on more supper.

High in the sky, three crows fly over, from sunset to the east. Two are close together, one is some distance away. I watch them weave across the sky, keeping this not-quite-altogether-but-still-connected formation. Until we're distracted by Indi-Girl getting to her feet and going and staring fixedly at the garage roof. We know there's a possum living in the garage - we've heard its 'kickstarting a motorbike' growl, and we've seen its shadow on some nights when it climbs up the mulberry sailcloth branches. The branches bend with its weight, but don't break, and the possum uses them to go from the garage to the fence without touching the ground. 

The possum is probably waking up now too. I call Indi-Girl away, and hope she'll listen to me before she breaks into a volley of barks which will crack the quiet of the late afternoon. She does. She's a good puppy-girl and listens to me and comes over for a 'yes-you're-a-good-girl-yes-you-are' pat, before going and getting a lovely long drink of water. LittleOne echoes my 'doo-durl' praise to Indi, complete with tone of satisfaction.

LittleOne then asks where the moon is. We saw it earlier during our afternoon play, three-quarters full and paper-white. I can't see the moon from our view of the sky from the deck stairs and I say so. But I'm comfortable and enjoying this moment, and I don't stir to look for the moon either. But when LittleOne starts calling "Moo-oon!" and begins looking down through the deck steps onto the ground for Moon, my heart cracks a little, and I start trying to find our Moon.

Find it, I do. By leaning forward to look up at the sky above the deck roof, there in the lilac sky, there is our Mother Moon. She is no longer paper-white; she is beginning to glimmer the colour of frangipani petals. 

Excitedly, I shuffle LittleOne to the right deck step where the Moon is visible and I'm rewarded with a joyous cry of "Mooooon!", followed by a wave and then a "Hello, Moon. So Happy to see you!" It is one of LittleOne's newest and most beautiful sentences, as much because of the sincere lilt which gets added to the 'happy'. My heart breaks a bit more and in a good way.

We shuffle ourselves to sit on the lower deck steps so we can see the garden and Mother Moon and wave to her, as the world slowly turns into evening. 

An ordinary late Sunday afternoon that's special in every way.

Du fond du coeur,
ReeD