The Spirit of Autumn

[May_It_Be]

Written during severe depressive episode ... like most of my poetry and prose. Written freely, quickly, no editing, haven't even re-read it. A free-flow of emotions.

 

Autumn rested upon the forested highlands. Freely dying trees, ablaze with fiery blood, congregated like martyred specters, burning into the very depth of encroaching winter; whether their intention was to welcome the season or ward it off was unspoken, unknown, even amongst themselves. It was an ancient tradition, established in antiquity, scrawled in the circling lines of their very trunks. The unsung sprites emerged from those flames, flickering shards of shattered soul-light trailing their glimmer, faintly, into the night: such fragile interlacings, woven in lament – such an intricate dance performed since the ages of fallen starshine, swathed in still more ages, esoteric ages, lost forever.

 

Gossamer, winged, steeped in eternity, were these faeries. Intersecting, intermingling, yet retreating into the twilight of mortal midsummer, which slept now, reposing beneath autumn’s gentle shroud. Sorrowing sounded in the silent exhalation of retiring glens, trembling hollows; underbrush tenderly unfurled its protective mantle, to make a refuge for the displaced, the firelings, the shadow folk, the ephemeral nymphs of water, wind. The wailing wihts, with their ancient songs, veered softly away, further into the dark, where, muted, they’d seek asylum of a different sort, far and away, bequeathing mere echoes of their melodies to the somber season.