As the last licks of summer spread the sky’s horizon with red clouds thick as peanut butter, we will go to the orchard. The apples ripe on their branches will swell, and they will be plucked. And put in wicker baskets.

I’ve never asked where the baskets come from but it is the one thing I do wish to know.

In the warmth of the evening the lot of us gather in the glen, lit by fireflies, lit by our grand fire, too. And near the crackling logs we’ll sing a capella; themes we knew when we were young. One of these days one of us will have to build a guitar. For now, we clap along.

There is nothing like fall here, for nowhere else do the leaves turn as red as the apples. Nowhere else can you smell the smoke and the orchard in the pies, the apple cakes. Nowhere else does the peanut butter churned on the tongue of September taste so much like October.