In the backyard the piled leaves lay soggy and stubborn as the wind kicked the last remaining maple leaves from the branches. Sky, the color of doubt, thickened and drew near, unapologetically eavesdropping. The woodstove grunted as I dropped in the still-wet hunk of fir. It looked like a dog had spent the summer gnawing the edges. I was just grateful this piece didn't drip with fat black carpenter ants. Earlier, the intrusion of my rusted old maul into a round of cherry explosded ants across the concrete patio. I danced across their flash mob, thoroughly crushing months of practice and choreography. As the woodstove groaned and creaked, James Taylor pleaded, "Go on and do as you please, You ain't gonna see me gettin' down on my knees." Most of the rain outside missed it's landzin zone, the overflowing koi pond (minus the koi), and pelted into the plastic awning over the patio or thudded on the grass, already an inch deep in water. Then it paused, taking a breath like a falled toddler, and the blitz continued. Stepping outside, hands in pockets, I walked the ten minutes to the mailbox. The wind held me as if it were thinking of someone else, but still eased in through the gaps in my layers to touch and chill my skin. The skyt was wooled and heavy to the east, thinning as it extended, reaching west to the horizon and the ocean. A sliver of blue lay across the western sky like the last slive of pie in the pan, or the answer you wanted to a question you didn't want to ask. I looked across the field of Christmas trees surrounding the house, wondering when they'd be harvested. I assumed they'd be cut one day while I was away at work and I'd return to find they'd finally taken what was never really mine.