Meta-Ken

The Autumn leaves show me how to die today. Their life culminates in one brilliant instant like the last flash of a star before it grows dark, crimson and vermilion exploding from within. A season's worth of sunlight is released at once, and each leaf bursts forth with all the fiery glory of a hundred dawns and dusks. And after this moment of splendor and triumph, the leaves let go. They willingly drift into the waiting arms of the wind, that sometimes roaring and sometimes rustling pallbearer. To face death without fear is something only the rarest of men achieves. To welcome death joyously, like a long lost lover - that is something only saints, madmen - and perhaps leaves - can hope to achieve.