I ate lunch outside atop our white wooden table yesterday. I dangled my feet over the porch railing and watched a monarch butterfly float from flower to flower. It drank deeply from a magenta zinnia, pirouetted into the air, then dropped down onto a fiery orange blossom to drink again. I wondered if the butterfly is fresh from a chrysalis I’ve been watching. One of the three under the porch stairs looked ready the day before: instead of the bright green translucence of a new chrysalis, the sheath was transparent, and I could see the folded orange and black wings of the butterfly within it.

The mums are a deep brick red, and the sedums like blushing cauliflowers. I love these rusty hues after the bright yellow and cool lavender flowers of summer.

I’ve hardly sat on the deck since spring. The weather is finally perfect for it now. I wore short sleeves yesterday, jeans, and bare feet. Wind rustled the leaves of trees all around me, and the breeze was cool on my arms while the sun on my back was warm. I couldn’t see the bird feeder because the oak is still heavy with foliage that obscures it. I see a few red-tipped leaves, though. Soon the branches will be bare, and the birds will come to eat, and I will lunch with them.