Reduced to possession

Life and death and October

Nothing has happened for hours.

And now everything is happening all at once.

It’s always this way, and I am always surprised.

I do not see them, but sense them somehow, and they’re already close. Maybe it’s that sweet cervid musk wafting up from the creek bottom, rising on the late-morning thermals as golden beams probe through the branches.

I sniff long …