Autumn Falls Round And - Robust

It was the year’s answer to death. Loud, round, and so ripe it was almost obscene.

The maple by the barn hadn’t just turned—it had exploded . Its leaves were not pale yellow or sentimental orange. They were the color of a forge: crimson, vermilion, the deep maroon of old blood. The sugar maples along the lane had gone the same way, fat with color, each leaf looking like it had been dipped in candle wax and set on fire. autumn falls round and robust

This year, the summer had been brutal. A drought had cracked the soil into puzzle pieces. The corn had come in short and bitter. Elias had spent July and August fighting off a kind of exhaustion that lived in his bones, the kind you get when you’ve been a widower for twelve years and the house is too quiet and the tractor keeps breaking down. It was the year’s answer to death

He should have felt the melancholy then. The ending. Its leaves were not pale yellow or sentimental orange