FALLING

The tangled roots and stems lay in a pile next to thriving mint and basil. The globes gone, the hornworms picked off (and crushed between dirty fingers), the hope of continuing candy-like sweet flesh dissipating in the thickening air. The Equinox looms, the pulled tomato plants blanch and crisp in the September sun, a few droplets fall from the muggy sky. We cheer, scratch our sweaty foreheads, twist strands of salty, sun-bleached hair.
I will soon pull out my smartwool socks.
I will start taking hot baths.
I will soon stop craving ice cream every day after working on the farm.

We're trying for fall. Trying to fall into deeper darker nights and fuzzy hoodies and crisp apples in hand and creamy mexican mochas listening to Ella at coffeehouses and a beach clean of (plastic) (alcohol free) bottles and (sunburnt) (LOUD) tourists.
Pumpkins on vines and cloud islands in the brighter blue sky.
A few leaves crunchy in the gutter in front of Craftsman houses, craft beer in hand, holding (unsweaty) other  hands.
I will breath deep, look up, pull my knitted scarf tighter as I dig in cool damp soil. I will revive like the ailing squash leaves the morning after a hot afternoon.

(Falling in San Diego isn't the same. My red orange flaming tree isn't down the road, wood fires don't fill the air with delicious smoke, gardens aren't sung lullabies. But we still fall.)

Some of the tomato plants will survive the (barely) winter, renew themselves, realize its really not too cold to fruit. By then I will be thinking again about summer, about gossamer dresses with farm boots and warm ocean water and stone fruits in hand and sweaterless picnics in the park but still savoring the flavors of spiced cider and smell of pine.

Goodbye tomatoes. Goodbye squash. Hello my Autumn Redux.