the ivied walls of the last days of summer

The weather snapped cold, all of a sudden yesterday. I was dashing into work and some quirk of the atmosphere had brought down air cold enough that I saw my breath, clouds in the air for the first time this year. The cold has been late coming this year, and accordingly the land has borne fruit. I have grapes this year, raspberries, even a few sad apples on my ailing apple tree.



The warmth has also caused a green seep to rise up across the walls, and strike out into the gardens and up the trees; bindweed, nasturtium, passion vine, virginia creeper and the endless, unstoppable, steady creep of ivy, at this time of year buzzing with bees drunk on its autumn flowers. Don't cut me back, it says, exhaling out another three feet of cabled, clinging growth, not quite yet. Leave me for the bees and brightness and the flowers which smell like your grandmother's handcream.

It's being disingenuous. Unlike the Nasturtium I see my neighbour lifting up like a rug to mow  underneath, or the bindweed whose white flowers I have come to love in this chaotic year, it won't melt to slime at the first hard frost. Ivy is eternal; the only limiter on the ivy I have as a lightener on my shadiest wall is me.

But even so, if it makes it to November, I'll probably leave it.