Dodo Au Go-Go

The days are starting to shorten. Barely. Tiny little five-minute increments, morning and night. Hardly noticeable. And yet, the shift is there. Two weeks ago, the sun still felt warm and high in the sky at 6.30pm. Since last week, I've been aware that I've been rushing and wrangling the family to get out of the dusk by 6.30pm (*points to mosquitoes - or as Aussies would say, mozzies - with baleful side-eye*).  This (obviously) happens every year, but I suppose I'm noting it here, because it's not often I actually feel like I'm catching that moment of change. The moment when the seasons stretch their arms, merge in a hug and the world strolls imperceptibly from summer into autumn. Or maybe we do notice it - in the way we're aware of the backdrop of things, but without really paying attention to them. I can say I've been vaguely aware that the heat and humidity characteristic of south-eastern Queensland summers has lately been retreating at night....

It is autumn here in the Blue Mountains in Australia. The world has been getting steadily colder for weeks, the sun has retreated in the sky, and leaves are falling to the ground in great numbers. It is both beautiful and melancholy, and it instills a form of sun-worship deep inside me that I don't think I will ever lose - even though I grew up as a child of the tropics. I don't like knowing there are still three bleak months of winter to come, so I focus on the small, visual beauties of autumn in the here and now . Back in high school, I remember we were given an English Lit assignment of writing a poem about autumn. We never did enough of the creative writing, which was my favourite thing (although I used to anticipate it so much, the joy in the actual writing and end result never lived up to expectation). For the autumn poem, I can't remember what I wrote (thank goodness!) except that I tried to make it rhyme. I tried to use all the right imagery borrowed from the...