As the world turns and perhaps burns, the Boy’s delight in the autumn colors has become tinged with melancholy. From the sense of impending loss most heightened by the beauty all around...

It’s a Sunday afternoon in September. And the Texas autumn is giving, dare I say, “a southern California weather moment.”

One day in the peak of August, the Texas sun gleamed like a gem in the morning dew. On this day, the Boy finds himself running late, rushing to get to where he was getting to. But something about how this ray of light illuminated the morning mist —rising from the grass “like pearls on emerald fields,” made the Boy slow down.