Autumn Leaves

Bright yellow sunlight dapples across the crisp autumn leaves as black, white and grey clouds tumble across the canopy of the cold blue sky. Branches sway in the cold autumn breeze shedding crisp orange brown leaves that swirl around in the winds that come from secret caves etched in the arctic tundra where borealis play games across the starry black sky. 

Completely immersed in autumn, the smell a cascade of flavours like burning charcoal in a kiln, a taste of sweetness like mushrooms growing on a sweet bed of decay and insects crawling amongst fallen leaves welding them to form an unyielding carpet. Snowflakes in my mind tell that winter will soon follow, the ascent of Boreas. Snow-blind to the last vestiges of summer in the remaining rays of sunlight as birds migrate across a turbulent sky. Arms wide and head back to catch the falling rain, the taste of raindrops, the pin pricks on naked skin and the cold that consumes bones. 

Trees alive with branches on the move, faces in the bark and knots that flow like eddies in a river. Leaves dancing dances given to them by the ever-changing breeze. Vibrant falling leaves where life is deception, decay is truth, long dead chloroplasts and absent photosynthesis. Skeletal red veins upon the leaf that once held food and water now dead, no more tubes of xylem and phloem. 

The spring held birth and the summer held life but autumn betrayed us all in the death of one whose kindness should have meant a gift of immortality from the Gods. Zeus, son of Cronus almighty among the Titans, King of the Gods, could you not have saved her ? And Hera, God of women, where were you at her time of need, were you sleeping ? And, Athena where was your wisdom ? And, my friend all-powerful Dionysus where were you when the wine ran dry? Do you never think to help mortals who are worthy ? 

And so the one God came to drive out the many but the good still die young while the evil stay strong. Peace briefly walked the Earth while love reared its head but alas many perished in fire born of winter as autumn yielded to absent flowers. Leaves now fallen lie under a blanket of winter with the one we lost lost amongst the leaves all trodden and damp. Winter enters in as we bid autumn leaves farewell and our loss is as bitter as the cold winter winds.

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