I am in my autumn. The leaves that once clung to my bows, green and pleasant and vibrant, basking in the glow of the summer’s sun release their grasp. Orange, red, brown, withered, dry, each tumble from me. I wish for warmth as the fluids recede within, collecting to survive the coming winter, in hopes of a spring never coming.
It is here that I wish for a sun the stretches long and blankets me in its warmth. I cannot forget the warm glow that met my upward face and how it imbued me with power and will. Now that warmth, will, and power shrinks in the growing dark of each passing day. The laughter of summer life and its promise disappears into the flourishing nighttide.
In this state, as the sun still promises it boon, briefer and briefer, I toil. Trying to reach a compact before it dies in a cold winter sun. In this convinced privation, I work, I tire, I work.
In my autumn, beneath an abating light, my strength in recession, I fight against my impending frost, a winter that eats all I hope for.