Breathing, she drinks it in. This atmospheric euphoria.

This autumnal aura of a falling, a flitting, a fluttering.

A smoky mocha and almond coolness enveloping the world,

And with the crumbling crunch of leaves against the pavement,

She steps across these chasms of colour,

Dying quietly in brownish hues,

Content to be beautiful in their last days.

In macabre anticipation of the silken whiteness of winter,

The forest floors now wrap themselves in sweaters of dying leaves.

The skies through broken branches greet her in greyscale,

A welcome contrast to these colours below.

And the gentle, cyclonic twisting of the lazy wind

Persuades the barren trunks to sway so slowly

While their tree tops tall

Groan an empty dirge of fall.

~j.d. schofield