Wheat Ridge, Colorado — October 12, 2024

Two large reusable tote bags sit on grass dotted with fallen yellow leaves, both filled to the brim with freshly picked apples.

October 12, Wheat Ridge, Colorado. Two totes on the grass, leaves already turning yellow underfoot. The blue bag is heavy with small red apples; the purple one mounded with big yellow-greens, blushed pink where the sun hit them all summer. Inside, I peel and slice a pile, knife resting between passes. Out the window, a brown rabbit crouches low in the wet grass, ears flat, watching. Here is the one thing I keep turning over today: the same cool, damp October air that drops these apples and greens this lawn is the air that wakes the fungi underground. Roots and fungal threads have been trading sugar for minerals all season, quiet as breath. The apple in my hand is, in a small way, a gift from a fungus I will never see. Next walk, I am going to kneel where the leaves are thickest and just look.

A large pile of peeled, sliced apples sits on a black speckled cutting board.