Doris Lynch

Falling

Perhaps, I take the season’s name too literally. A contretemps with four dogs – one mine, wild and new, three a neighbor’s – left me on the ground, wrapped in assorted leashes with my hand hanging loose like a dead pigeon. Broken wrist, right side. A misjudgment on a turn cycling on another October Sunday caused me to flip over the handle balls and fracture my elbow. Right side again. A beautiful hike in the Kentucky hills left me tripped by leaf-camouflaged roots on a steep hill howling in pain. Left side. But, this time I suffered no breaks only a severe contusion, which blossomed and reddened on the drive home. So when did these autumn surrenders to gravity begin? As a child of ten, one brilliant autumn day, I swung on a Tarzan swing over Stony Creek. When I veered too low and crash-landed on a sharp trapezoidal rock, the creek lived up to its name and gave me a triangular scar on my knee.

watching the first leaf fall convalescence