Whist! Who treads there on darkened coffee mug rim, this falling autumnal morn? Who glittered the edge of table and utensil…scattered orange orchard dust over the heated cream? Why…’tis an autumn sprite, tripping lightly over a sunbeam…plummeting headfirst toward the steaming drink, catching herself as she totters at drink’s edge. With a shake of cinnamon wings, she hovers furiously, breathes in coffee heat and sighs.
Who is she? This yellow wisp of air…this willow snippet? Whist!…she sprinkles a warning that sounds like bells. ‘I am a most discouraged neighbor of winter past, Mr. Jack Frost…unruly imp who never stops to breathe in raspberry chocolate or to nestle over hearth and home. He is crackly and rude while freezing my reddy orange beams and purpled plum air with buckets of white frosting…that old Mr. Jack’.
With a shrug of shoulder and a hint of lemon curly swirl, she flutters off…disappears into the long sunbeam so dappled through curtain’s lace.
Soon…closer now than ever…the creamed edges of this mug shall no longer bathe in auburn light and dappled salmon, for one has glimpsed the nose of the sprite and her dimpled eyes as she heads southward for a season. Somewhere, lies under the memory of golden leaves…her only trace…the diamond glitter kicked loose from dancing shoes and nutmeg tresses, shed while gloaming over hot buttered toast on a window’s ledge.
Shhh…does one hear his clattering paint bucket and his raspy yell? His white spattered ladder is seen…folding over the garden fence…too soon, too soon. So let us snuggle down one and all…under the mug of warmth…just a minute longer with a dollop of cream and a hint of a dream and a smattering of spritely yellow glitter, warmed and sparkled…and fading downward into brown…
690 Saint Paul 