Autumn On The Lake

The sun warms his face and hands on a golden, tranquil, autumn afternoon as he slips along the edge of this placid lake. At first the lake looks much like it did last year, and the year before. The curves of the mountains,the distinctive trees, craggy stumps, the blackened rocks, their silhouettes he watches for, and recognizes; like an old friend. And more so on days, when he blindly feels his way along in the early morning fog, or at dusk in the waning sunlight. Eyes always groping for a familiar friend to guide him home. But he soon realizes that something is different this year. Perhaps it is the path of the sun, casting different shadows and creating different colors? Maybe, it's the melancholy he felt at departure of the loons or the ducks? Or maybe it's the unusual weather we all have been talking about? No, he reflects and decides in passing; that much here looks the same as it did five, ten or twenty years ago when he first came here. So alive then and looking ahead, with eager young eyes. He knows now that he looks now through the eyes of a man who is another year older. A man who is one year closer to his final journey down this familiar lake. A final journey when he will be one with, and in an eternal embrace, with all that is around him.