Leafing through a library book, she tilts her head toward the window as a bird jovially tweeted the news of the day. If she was only a bit more fluent she could translate better. ‘Till then, the rough translation of the bird’s ode is “Another Monday, another cloudy day, I’ll tell you how the sun sets and leave the story about the sunrise to Ms. Dickenson!”

Half skeleton and half translucent leaves from last fall swirled around, mingling with fresh clippings of the luxuriously green grass atop the hill. It’s as if autumn had something more to say, something left on the cusp of the harvest dusk that could not relinquish ‘till the time of the next corn husk.

Leaves, now brown and wiry, once reflected the sun’s benedictions in silent zealous hues. She wonders, “Will tomorrow be the day that the little greenies poke their fuzzy leaf-efforts out of the maple branches?” The enthusiastic Buckeye branches didn’t procrastinate; what words of encouragement can one give to a maple? Patience, young sapling, she reminds herself. We did soak up that lovely sunny November.

She gathers up her book and little bag and the blanket. Walking out of the library doors, she traced the white tongues of concrete, each extending pasty, sandpapery arms out in nearly each direction. Circles and shapes of risen soil would soon explode with jungle plants, proclaiming (in their own tongue) their joy to the indigenous plants across the sidewalk.

In other corners of the town, the fields of prairie grass once hosted a dance between the autumn leaves and the drying grass, one clinging to the other, waiting for the wind to blow in the snow. Now, as she walked the sidewalk, the concrete and manicured lawns of spring echoed the scuttling of leaves. The once blithe and natural dance sounds like scratching and clawing against the different dance floor.

Fresh Maytime brings tumultuous winds and finally warm sunshine. What’s more, blue sky and clouds are determined to defy the imagination. Down on the earthen paths and man-made sidewalks, human minds and hands talk about the “why’s” and “how’s” of dealing out justice and death cards to Bin Laden and any human life.

She gazes just beyond the boundaries of the hill, past a stitching of cottonwoods along a tilled field. She watches and listens in surprise. Thousands of sheets of paper (probably printed nearby) gather together in a white, papery tornado.

Not yet four inches in diameter, the little sapling looks around as tizzy of papers flew around like autumn leaves. Essays on justice, service, faith, community and excellence cloud the sapling’s view of the sunset. One piece of paper bears the word “graduation” in bold print. It was filled out except for the applicant’s signature.

Somewhere in the blue-jean pocket of a youth, a list of things to do and a list of things to improve on crunch against one another in the trek back home. Across rivers and valleys, corn farms and open fields, forests and mountains, the big sky watches as the blue jeans tickle the earth’s skin. There is ample room for anther sheet of paper in that pocket, especially given that those jeans were a gift in the first place, along with each leaf of paper.

Reaching in to the pocket, the young blue-jeans chum pulls out a third piece of paper. An article from last month’s The New Yorker grins back at the hand and face, heart and mind of the body it shares jeans with.