"There are those days which seem a taking in of breath which, held, suspends the whole earth in its waiting. Some summers refuse to end.
So along the road those flowers spread that, when touched, give down a shower of autumn rust. By every path it looks as if a ruined circus had passed and loosed a trail of ancient iron at every turning of a wheel. The rust was laid out everywhere, strewn under trees and by riverbanks and near the tracks themselves where once a locomotive had gone but went no more. So flowered flakes and railroad track together turned to moulderings upon the rim of autumn."
Farewell Summer, Ray Bradbury