Today is a day for change. I have felt its imminent grasp like the frost clutching grass. Too soon there will be only shadows. 

Long-forgotten moon faces, crunchy corn husks. I have harvested the icy winds in this maize, only to find the twists and turns new and dangerous. 

I have spent time at the dead ends, lost and unfound...convenient, until you want out. Annoying laughs like siren calls can be heard ringing through the halls. I thought I knew the drill...but now I am too big to fit under a desk.  

I loudly corrected myself when saying, “Husband,” to “Ex-husband”! 

But can you ever actually "ex" someone as important as wife or husband? I think not. 

Some deep part of you was committed and will not let go. The conscious mind cannot tell the heart to stop feeling, stop wanting, stop caring. 

You cannot undo certain bonds, no matter how much you would like. The ones closest to our life force, the ones to which we made ourselves vulnerable, the ones that caused the “Ohs,” these are now, unexpectedly, ironically, the "Exes."  

It seems the "Ohs" that meant so much will inevitably fade into oblivion, disdain, or death. People should not matter that much...in the end. Their absence should not cause so much pain. 

But they did, and they do. And when they're gone, a blank space remains. The webs woven, faces and hearts entwined, round and round. Did I choose? Did I know? That Tic-tac-toe would be played with my heart? 

There are no answers to these, or most questions. I spoke to the dead once, and in that dream, I knew all the secrets of being and non-being, but only for a moment. Upon waking, the kernels of truth slipped from my mind like water melting off an icicle. 

I returned from the Deer Hunter, the man who wore the ring. My harvest had become a flimsy onion, on the precipice of rot. The layers of me—weak, predictable, shallow. 

Now it is time to make a stew. Cook down all the pieces...saving them from ruin, in the hopes I become palatable once again, something else altogether, heretofore, unnamed. 

I went outside and sipped some broth. The sun shone down, feeding my skin, invigorating me. I felt more like the old me. 

Change was in the air. With the fall winds came quiet nights at home, writing. Pumpkin patches at dusk and slow walks during the day. Oatmeal and fruit in the morning. Skiing in the fresh snow.