On Autumn

Autumn continues to exist despite the request of the other seasons to go away, to find some disconsolate corner of the universe in which it can endlessly cover the land with the fallen brittle leaves from which the trees have sucked all the precious chlorophyll. Autumn is decidedly deciduous and stubbornly clings to the soil in which it has settled, though that land is deemed marginal, full of sinkholes, ravines, streams which vanish without regular replenishment, scars of rock projecting like bone through the dirty skin of the land, unfit for habitation or agriculture. Autumn remains an awkward moment in the silent reprobation of Faerie.

Of course, no one actually envisions a year with only three seasons, in which summer abruptly transforms to winter without the calm intercession of autumn. Rather, it is an essential component of existence in Faerie to wish for things one does not want in order to stave off the insatiable hunger for that which one truly longs for but does not receive.