`...and the sun`s brightness fade, and the winds would sigh humanely, and the clouds rain tears, and the woods shed their leaves and put on mourning in midsummer, if any man should ever for a just cause grieve. Shall I not have intelligence with the earth? Am I not partly leaves and vegetable mould myself?`

- Henry David Thoreau

Autumn, unique, bold and distinctive amongst seasons. It is, for me, a wonderful time of year, and though it is a time when the world dies back and things become sparse and bare at the same time it encompasses that last glorious flush of life, moving like tiny little hands giving thanks to God. The spreading leaves of an umbrella tree with lobes and veins so proud and filled with the warm blood of summer, gracefully falling with color so red and beautiful like roses. After a long hot season when they often fall just before the rains, they all entangle and away the wind takes them blow by blow on a cloudless day.

All those rich reds, vivid orange, bright yellows, crisp browns, the burning of the trees as they shed their leaves, stripping back to their naked selves. The passion before the long sleep. Lovely. The last glorious flush of life, the fire before the burning, and it is this that marks out autumn as a special time for me. Oh! I hope someday they land silently on that grassy bed like a bouquet of autumn leaves on my silent grave.

Pix. were taken by me!