The Advent of Autumn
- October 17th, 2009
- Posted in Creative Writing . Prose
- By sycobuny
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I’m staring down the nearly-empty aisle of trees; they’ve nothing but the morning mist keeping them company. Soon it’ll be too cold for those mists: I can already feel the summer dying, deep in my bones. Each moment is a step closer to the frigid winter, when Mother Nature’s nurturing warm embrace turns into an icy grip, crushing what it once created.
I know it’s all a cycle; you don’t have to tell me that. Some day, a season or two down, from those dead things will spring new life. But still and still, I can’t help but feel those last gasps of the life that is now. It still struggles, against the almighty tides of eventuality, to hang on to whatever purchase it has for just a moment longer. I watch as a leaf drifts, almost casually, down to the dirt.
Weeping willows at their height have no tears like an oak in the fall.
Autumn Oak - Click through to purchase a print
This is my first attempt at creative writing in a little while (assuming you aren’t really counting my first post). I knew I wanted to say something but I wasn’t quite sure what. Eventually I forced myself to just start, and here’s what I came up with. I think it’s OK, but maybe my opinion will change. Hopefully for the better, but probably for worse.
There are distinct seasons in St. Louis. Our here the seasons seem to be “a fistful of winter” and then “pretty hot for a couple months.” The trees don’t really change brilliant oranges and reds so much as curl and die overnight. I’ll have been wearing shorts for two months and then, suddenly, I need jeans and a jacket for eight months. As you said, here life is ripped away from the trees by force, and in Spring life is shoved back into them. It’s not a very pretty thing.
The Great White Oak is the official State tree of Illinois. Some day maybe you will really be able to see Autumn while taking a drive along the Mississippi and see all of the trees cling to not only life, but the side of magnificent bluffs or the riverside.
I live my life of pain but the worst sickness of all is that of homesickness. Homesick for not only the gentle rise of life in Spring and the soft, quiet release of Autumn, but also the blistering heat of St. Louis summer and the deadening cold of St. Louis winter.
This city is like my life. At home my life had ups and downs but was gently flowing somewhere more familiar. It energized me and made my life more exciting. This city is on life-support, but ultimately braindead.
Or maybe it’s the drugs.