Fall is...

my favorite season. I prefer the sound of the name Autumn for this season, but if I am honest with myself, I almost always think of this time as the Fall.

The why of this is fairly obvious. Fall is my birth season, and I suspect we all have an affinity for the season of our arrivals. And our own personal celebrations. But Fall is other things.

Fall is...

the season of harvest. When the fruit ripens, ready for picking. When the crops are ready for harvest. When some of us go out and prey upon other creatures of the land, filling the larder for another year.

Fall is...

the season of decay. When the leftover fruits of the summer are dried and shriveled, waiting for more desperate birds to come and savor them on a winter day.

When the uneaten foliage cures and blows away, to be mulched and recycled into next summer's growth.

And the failed lives are returned to the earth. The preparation for renewal.

But most of all, Fall is...

colour. At the approach of Spring, we are dying to see the colour green. And thrill at seeing it cover the landscape. But by summer, the green is boring, and we are delighted at the interruptions of blue, yellow and pink flowers. But Fall is the true blaze of colours. Reds, oranges and yellows. Burning across the countryside.

And most of all, Fall is...

the last struggle of life against the inevitable onslaught of winter. The hurry to get one last blossom out. To ripen one last seed. To fill the belly and lay a few more grams of fat down for the winter. The frantic struggles to breed, to carry one's DNA forward for another year. In the face of winter's first warning blasts.