Allison Campbell Jensen

Early October and the six o’clock church bell rings in the twilight as I untangle the branches and peek under to seek plump, purple raspberries. Bees, too, land and rise, leaving a branch that I lift to drone onto the next. I and they, all of us creatures, may appear peaceful yet I believe the bees share my sense of the shorter days. Do they fly a bit faster? Do they choose a riper berry? Do their insect eyes pause to take in the sunlight’s slant?

While the bees and I hoard, the trees prepare for coming darkness with light: the locust trees shed gold, the oaks don gleaming russet coats, the sumac flames.