Is That the Smoke of Long Ago Campfires?

This may be Indian Summer. It usually happens in November around here. The mornings start chilly, but they warm up. And, the sky is blue and the leaves are brown. Another word is Gossamer days or Goose Summer. The days when olden people picked geese to make feather beds and pillows for winter. Small, loose feathers went drifting through the air. Only now, it is bits of spider webs broken loose from the moorings.

And, long before then, the smoke from Indian camp fires or home fires lifted up into the blue heavens as the people went about their daily tasks of cooking and keeping their homes warm.

There’s something beautiful but sad about these days. It’s as if warm weather is trying to linger but realizes it must go to make way for another season. Years ago, I penned a poem about it. The poem is in the book, The Heritage of Etta Bend.

Indian Summer

by Blanche Day Manos

First, a faint and smoky color creeps across the blue horizon,

And the warmth of many campfires seems to hover in the air;

Then the leaves turn brown like buckskin on the trees the night wind sighs in,

While the lovely Indian summer passes softly as a prayer.