a rabbit pulled up in the drive...

 
It was quiet as I sat and waited on his visit.   Earlier, I had gotten a tip from an old hat in the neighborhood where I could find him.   He wasn’t there though.  But the thought too crossed my mind that he might have been sleeping, and so I just left him a note inviting him over at his convenience.    His call was almost immediate.      

“Where were you while I was knocking?”   I asked him.  
“Out in the garden pulling weeds.”  He said cheerfully.  

We laughed and talked a bit as we made plans for an afternoon visit.    He told me he was going to bring with him his pocket of magic, leaving me breathless with childlike anticipation and wonder.  He was very charming, I thought, but I could only imagine.  I could imagine him pulling from his trousers when he got here, some disgraceful weed, and then have it immediately turn into a delicate flower as he fondles it among his fingers, gracefully with sleight of hand, and then handing it to me.  

****

I started smiling as I saw him pull in and park by the tree.   He got out and shut the door of his compact car, pulling his jacket around his waist, belting it only with a casual knot.   He stood in the air a moment as though he was sensing something.     I wondered.    No more than a week ago I had noticed a turning in the atmosphere as if then it was Indian summer weather.    Perhaps it was autumn that lingered like a friend, soon to be bursting through the cottonwoods with its reddish gold, magenta, and expressions of yellow aspen.       I watched him with all the delights of the moment – he looked at the turquoise sky overhead and then toward a sunflower’s burnished impression.   He started up the walkway.  Out the window he caught me smiling; he took slight pause again as my heart opened.    I watched him as he watched me, like a knowing.    I was excited to see him, hoping he brought the weed.