The falling leaves of fall

"No spring nor summer beauty hath such grace as I have seen in one autumnal face." John Donne, The Autumnal, The Complete Poetry and Selected Prose.

Donne was an English poet and a cleric in the Church of England.

Love, like that of a leaf in the wind; and a smell, like that of the ripe earth; comes forth like the year's last, loveliest smile, come October; for the wind is rising and the air is wild with leaves. Leaves keep falling and they are falling like, they are falling in love with the ground. Fall is here and the leaves are beginning to turn, with trees taking on golden, amber, and scarlet hues. Yes, autumn has arrived, and so the leaves start blushing and turning red.

Fall has always been my favourite season, the time when everything bursts with its last beauty, as if nature had been saving up all year for the grand finale. Unfortunately, for us people living at the equator, we will see little difference, as these parts of the world experience less seasonal change because of the planet's tilt. But Sri Lankans are lucky that way, though not to the extent of people living in the Northern Hemisphere.

We have Nuwara Eliya, a place that I love so much and where the summer mist is romantic, as is the autumn mist sad.

A place, where the leaves always turn late in the year and where the hills are fog and the rivulets are mist.In Nuwera Eliya, the noon goes quickly, dusk and twilight linger, and midnights stay cold even if the fireplace lit: where the wind in the willow trees laid the ground for many of my romantic escapades - not all, necessarily with the fair sex but more with the play of imagination that encircles my artistic world.

Autumn, that season of peculiar and inexhaustible influence on the mind of taste and tenderness, the last smiles of the year upon the tawny leaves and withered hedges, is a second spring when every leaf is a flower; and the fallen leaves, reminds me of the winter sun.

I miss the change of seasons: when spring passes and innocence remembered; when summer passes and exuberance remembered; when autumn passes and reverence remembered; and when winter passes and one remembers one's perseverance.

One is always a little sad in the fall; because one gets that feeling that a part of you has died as the leaves fall from the trees and you brace for that harsh cold wintery wind. Yet, one is also happy because you know that life will flow once again as the river would, again after it was frozen.

Yet, there is something incredibly nostalgic and significant about the annual cascade of autumn leaves that carries more gold in its pocket than all the other seasons.

I think it is because, unlike spring the season of love, autumn is the season of mad lust.

If spring is for flirting, fall is for the untamed delicacies of wild things. I am, made for autumn and everything about autumn is perfect for me: the low slanting light, the crisp mornings-her moody hues, punctured every now and then by a brilliant orange, scarlet, or copper.

She is my true love. Autumn, I am in love with you even if we are not together. I want to tell you that I am at peace with just the thought of you.

The days last longer at places farther from the equator because the sun rises early and takes longer to set. The autumnal equinox brings shorter, colder days and beautiful red, orange, and yellow leaves to the Northern Hemisphere. Monday before last, (Sept. 22), the Earth had nearly equal amounts of light and darkness, as summer ended in the Northern Hemisphere and a new fall season began.

Depending where you live, the changing colours of leaves or a sudden briskness in the air may have made it seem like the seasons had already shifted, but the equinox on Monday, September 22, signalled the official start of autumn.

Sometimes the autumnal equinox falls on Sept. 23 or 24 because of irregularities in the calendar and Earth's orbit.

In addition to the autumnal equinox in late September, the Earth undergoes the vernal, or spring, equinox in March. Even though the word "equinox" translates to "equal" (aequus) and "night" (nox) in Latin, the days and nights are not strictly and precisely equal.

On the equinox and the days just before and after it, the day will last slightly more than 12 hours - by about six minutes longer as the sun passes directly over the equator.

However, for all practical purposes, at those times of the equinox, the lengths of day and night are almost equal across the world and in both cases, the Earth's axis is not, tilted toward or away from the sun.

People in the Northern Hemisphere associate autumn more with crisp walks and leaves to rake, until another seasonal shift happens, with the winter solstice on Dec. 21.

In Autumn: when the hearts of men go with the drift of things; and yield with grace to reason; and bow and accept the end of a love or a season; can I call it treason? Here is what a great thinker and rationalist said about changing seasons: "With myth and fable, we are ever charmed, and find a pleasure in the endless repetition of the beautiful, poetic, and absurd.

In all records of the past, philosophies and dreams, we find, efforts stained with tears of great and tender souls.

They tried to pierce the mystery of life and death; to answer the eternal questions of the Whence and Whither, and vainly sought to make, with bits of shattered glass, a mirror that would, in very truth, reflect the face and form of Nature's perfect self.

These myths were born of hopes, and fears, and tears, and smiles. They were touched, and coloured by all there is of joy and grief between the rosy dawn of birth, and death's sad night.

They clothed even the sta rs with passion, and gave to gods the faults and frailties of the sons of men. In them, the winds and waves were music.

All the lakes, and streams, and springs; the mountains, woods, and perfumed dells; were haunted by a thousand fairy forms.

They thrilled the veins of spring with, tremulous desire; made tawny summer's billowed breast the throne and home of love.

Filled autumn's arms with sun-kissed grapes, and gathered sheaves; and pictured winter as a weak old king who felt, like Lear upon his withered face, Cordelia's tears.

These myths, though false, are beautiful, and have for many ages and in countless ways, enriched the heart and kindled thought.

But if the world were taught that all these things are true and all inspired of God, and that eternal punishment will be the lot of him who dares deny or doubt, the sweetest myth of all the Fable World would lose its beauty, and become a scorned and hateful thing to every brave and thoughtful man." Some Mistakes of Moses, by Robert G. Ingersoll

Autumn is the greatest reminder: It reminds us how dreamlike beauties our earth has and it reminds us how all these beautiful dreams can easily vanish.

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