Between Breath and Frost

The air forgets how to stay warm.

It lingers, trembling in the lungs—

a ghost of cinnamon smoke

and rain-soaked leaves still clinging

to the last veins of gold.

Somewhere, a rake leans useless

against the fence,

and the wind rehearses its sharp new voice.

It smells of iron and wet bark,

of something ending politely—

the way a candle bows out

in a whisper of blue.

The sun moves slower now,

its light thinner than parchment,

spilling across rooftops

like memory rather than fire.

A single crow stitches the sky shut,

black thread on pewter cloth.

At the edge of the field,

frost begins its quiet negotiations—

claiming the tips of grass,

the brittle skin of puddles,

the breath that breaks from a horse’s muzzle.

It is not yet winter,

but the world has signed the papers.

You can hear it in the trees—

how their bones creak with surrender,

how the last maple leaf

flutters like a small, defiant flame

before giving in to gravity.

A river somewhere hums beneath its own reflection,

half ice, half motion—

caught between pulse and silence.

And you, standing in the hush,

can almost feel the planet exhale,

the way a body relaxes

when it decides to sleep.

Autumn doesn’t die here.

It folds itself into the soil—

a letter addressed to spring,

sealed with the cool breath

of everything that once burned bright.

For a moment, the world holds still—

between breath and frost,

between red and gray—

and all you can do

is listen

to the sound of seasons changing their shoes

in the dark.