September Girl

September. The sky cools. The impurities settle out. Here, up in the Hudson Valley, the sunlight is so clear that even beaming sideways through the late afternoon there is just the palest tinge of champagne in its color to betray that the star at its center is yellow and not white.

September 22. My birthday is the autumnal equinox. The sun crosses the celestial equator. A time of equipoise, just as a birthday is balanced between past and future. Summer becomes Fall. Virgo becomes Libra.

Always a sad time. Maybe because I've always lacked for social skills, and this is about the time of the new school year when it would become clear that I had failed once again to find a place. Maybe it's autumn itself, the disappearing animals, the waning sun, the leaves fired up with mad plant colors -- apricot, pomegranate, banana, orange, eggplant -- as the green, the good, chlorophyll decomposes. Maybe it's the clarity.

Clarity is always sad.