Three plump strawberries, hidden in the corners of leaves, in the shadowy places where the wind waits. I eat three more and talk to the kami and the fair folk and we share our summer fruit under the moonlight and yellowing street splash.

A moth as large as moths can get swoops towards the doorway, knocking itself against the flaking wood and I ask it to please stop it's self-destruction. I turn off the lamp and curl a while in darkness.

The chocolate is eaten down to the last bite, as we used to do, that mad, red-haired thing and I. And as I drop the remainder into the dry leaf hollows, I speak to her ghost. I still cannot touch the pain after six months. It is far too profound for me to fathom. And so I let it sit for another time.

I apologize for not having milk, but it doesn't seem like a night made for milk. And so, as midnight comes I leave the porch, my offering of fruit and sugar remains behind.

And now comes the slide down the other side towards the lifting of the veil and the long dark winter. But it's not a diminishing, a rapid gradient to grey. Potential energy turns kinetic and passion burns until the harvest. This is the season of manifestation.

Happy Solstice.