The leaves were fresh this spring; they wore cool colors all summer.  These autumnal months the greens brightened to hot extremes.  Reds and oranges falling up and down, floating like so many sparks of fire in the dark, landing with finality.  Suddenly all the boughs are bare between cool gusts as if a lover has recently left, the bed cooling in their wake.  It is a chill that chafes, a penetrative aloneness hurries the fading warmth.  A beauty beloved, and departed, yet again.  This is lucky, and reliable:  that new growth would ripen, evolve, die.  How fortunate an experience for any one to possess; how difficult for a lover to lose.  A period of grief is appropriate.  A life of gratitude even more so.  Are the tree and the lover-less body so different?  The bark basks in light, removed of its decoration.  Those left standing stretch their limbs.  The sun comes through resplendent to kiss every inch no longer in shadows.  A beauty still beloved, though bereft.