Does this happen to you?

Do you ever, on the first day of September,

as you walk into the wind, 

warm from exertion,

feel the freshness of the breeze bathe you with cool?

Do you turn left at the corner, feel 

the warmth of sun on your back

and notice the light has changed,

is somehow thinner –  

do you think to yourself,

“Ahhh, I’d forgotten that”?

Do you mostly forget 

what winter days feel like

until yours are the first footsteps

in the snow in the park,

and you see what early light can do

with all that whiteness

and the long shadows of trees?

And does the smell of mud

blossoming out of melting snow, 

still, somehow, surprise you,

though you’ve known it every year

since who knows when? –

and does thin ice 

on shallow puddles

seem like grace 

as you break it with your boot heel?

Do you smell ozone

one summer afternoon

after rain has settled the dust 

on the street of a prairie town, 

a scent forgotten,

now remembered, now familiar?

Do you still, sometimes, pull on a damp bathing suit 

and shiver?

Is your life your favourite book

dog-eared from many readings, 

and always 

these surprises, so well known?