It’s October and it hasn’t rained.
Why are we surprised? 
Why did we think 

it couldn’t happen here, our home, 
the Pacific Northwest? Moss, 
mushrooms, mist. 

The lake so low, puzzled geese. 
Who wants to think about it?
It’s October

and it hasn’t rained. I check my phone: 
Seattle 71 / Smoke. I meet a friend 
who asks me to write a secret 

on a scrap of paper. He does the same, 
then takes out his lighter, burns 
what we wrote, embers 

floating above the lake, adding our smoke 
to an AQI in the red, a 13,000-acre fire 
seventy miles away. 

The seven-day forecast: sun, sun, part sun, part sun, 
sun, sun, sun. I don’t want to ask 
but I know. 

The geese honk, fly south, but it’s not fall 
without the rain. The lake so low, 
exposing a sunken forest. 

It’s October, time to plant spinach and kale.
We fill the watering can, dream
of picking chanterelles.