There’s a smell in the air, a hint of loneliness. Take off your mask and breathe in deeply the last of summer humidity. Use your nose to identify an expected whiff of grape arbors pregnant with purple globes. Apples will soon turn red and drop to the ground. Anticipate a ripening. Do not sniff the subtle fear of winter.

Check out other senses, but do not shudder with worry. Your eyes can see the fading twilight of maturity, of our aging. Light wanes earlier each day but we are not in darkness yet. Listen. The male crickets saw their harps in hope of one late mating. Hear the flying Canada geese high overhead. Can they be heading south so soon? Are they abandoning us to the coming austerity?

The summer was the promised time; the virus was supposed to disappear. Allegedly, the sun’s gilded rays would kill it. Alas, the promise was not fulfilled. We want scientists to be in charge yet bodies in bikinis and bars took control all summer. Authority was given over to the delusion of freedom. Self-indulgence was god. The numbers of infected victims escalated. No savior came.

Do we dare put our golden hopes in this impending autumn? As ripened ears of corn point to the sky, can the crispness of the changing air allow us to trust? We try to inhale knowledge in a vacuum. Our lungs keep pulling in scientific breakthroughs, but it is too much empty space; we are devoid of the oxygen of an antidote. Solomon, where are you? No wisdom expands the bellows of our pump organ lungs. We renew the search for a vaccine. Like milkmaids who got their protection against smallpox from the cows, we anticipate herd immunity.  How many of our human flock must die? We call to Saint Michael to vanquish the evil virus killer. The sound is silence.

We are suffocating. Minuscule hairs inside our noses try to filter out dirty lies; dusty fawning surrounds us. We need a truth serum. We gulp down the cool, fresh air of possibility and wait. We cannot despair if we can still breathe. Each shallow inhalation brings hope for a cure. We must not go gentle into that dark night. Breathe … until another summer lights a brave new world.