I don’t ever want to leave this view. Some days I won’t even leave the yard. I venture out on the deck, bask in the sun, still myself until the birds return to the feeder. I wish to be part of the landscape, no more remarkable than a patch of buffalograss or a black-eyed Susan persisting into fall.

Clouds clump over the mountains, as they have all summer. Will they deliver this time? Will I wake tomorrow to sugar-coated mountains?