Last of the summer light

Autumn. In recent days it's cool winds have brushed against me in the evenings and it's clear skies hung cathedral-high in the mornings. The first week of March does not usually mark the change of seasons here, with late summer lingering like the taste of mango, languishing until April to release it's steamy grip. Waiting, on last Monday morning, for the lights to change, a breath of a southerly sent innumerable jacaranda leaves scudding and showering against my windscreen. Autumn, coolly inevitable, had flexed it's grip: summer is passing.

This afternoon, the dying light of Summer clung thick and heavy in the unexpectedly humid air. Unprepared to watch it's passing passively from my air-conditioned office, I arranged a rapid departure care of my husband-chauffeur and high-tailed it to New Farm for an emergency art fix, coffee and a walk in the park. The Brisbane Powerhouse provided both the coffee and art (in the form of the Walkley press photo exhibition. Kate Geraghty's essay on euthanasia brought me to tears) to sate my cravings.

As the sun sank closer towards Mt. Coot-tha we walked, hand in hand, around the rose gardens in New Farm Park. Summer's heat is not yet sufficiently past for the roses to recover, yet most every plant held at least a handful of scraggly blossoms. I buried my face in the biggest, softest blooms, cupping them against my skin and drinking in their gentle fragrance, redolent of Spring gentle dreaming.

We drove home in the lengthening light, absorbing the awakening of our senses. Once we pulled into the driveway I dashed inside to procure the camera then out into the garden in an attempt to capture this ephemeral beauty; the last of the Summer light.