Season's end

Ascending, the only sound is the creak of the cable car swaying between flexed conifers. You look back, as if from some promontory, at the edge of the world to see the sunny village hurled from your vision like a loose rock ricocheting, receding, lapped up by jagged leafy waves. Past the roof of branches, still like the wings of giant lifeless birds, a green silence spreads its amnesia. Suddenly your summer world below is gone, blanked out. Into this vanishing where everything can end or start, you postpone returning for a bit, as you rise and rise into the holy hush of pines, leaving your old cable car creaking far behind.Abetone, Italy(From the collection “Calligraphy Of Wet Leaves” published by Bengal Lights Books in 2015)