One yellow leaf fell this year, landed in a graveyard of brown. Accompanied by no bright crimson, orange, or amber. Summer was gone, but autumn never showed. Maybe I should be grateful that autumn zoomed into winter. Autumn, the melancholy season, the season of ungentle reminders: the yellowing of time, the misplaced dreams that move inexorably to the one place no one escapes. No time enough to be someone else.

Reminders in familiar places, places I don’t like to revisit. Reminders like the tragic death of Scott Weiland, an end that came on the heels of Chris Cornell’s Higher Truth, a different and beautiful place where a musician offers solace from the suffering of this world. Undamaged suffering that is yours and mine. Suffering that is unobscured by the panes of a window.

“I wish that I could find a seed and
Plant a tree that grows so high
So That I could climb and harvest the ripe stars
For you and I to drink
And spit the ashes from our mouths
And put the grey back in the clouds
Send them packing with our bags of old regrets and sorrows
Because they don’t do a thing but drag us down.”

A tree with no more yellow leaves. No more suffering.