Imagine to Remember

The birds have begun their yearly pilgrimage. They have left us in search of warmer waters and softer winds. Skies grey, and winds quicken and the birds understand that the time has come, with their young in tow, they make the first flight in their seemingly endless journey south. But not all the birds will leave us, some will stay, some will hide away, depriving us of their sweet songs, but the crow will not hide. This has always been peculiar to me. The days shrink and the nights grow, and a chill descends upon us all, covering us like a mantle, at first only prickling our skins, raising our hairs, making a bumpy terrain of our arms and our legs, and then sinking deeper and deeper still into our flesh, layer after layer and finally settling into our bones.  Long summers like this almost fool us into thinking that winter won’t come, cold and wind feel only like vague, fuzzy memories so far from anything the body has actually known, but it will come, it is already here.