Fabulous October morning bathed in sun, and in the garden the wet grass bathes my bare feet in what’s left of night. The cat stays with me a moment, then trots off to her own secret frontiers.
Seems we’ve been granted another reprieve from the inexorable descent of summer. Ah, the pleasures of illusion! The season is always changing, both slipping away and bursting forth, slipping away as it bursts forth and bursting forth as it slips away. It has no time and its own time. As do I, as do you, as does each petal and leaf.

I’ve been reading Hugo’s Les Misérables these days, marvelously steeped in the timeless saga of ignorance and misery, of love and hope, of Paris nearly 200 years ago. Is ours a better world? A changed city? Ah, the pleasures of illusion! The seasons change, indeed, as do the maps and modes of transport, but not a thousand inexhaustible delusions fueling our human follies. Nor the undying basic goodness of bodhisattvas like Jean Valjean.