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Dancing in the flame of the equinox
by Justin Ludwig
The Carillon
It brings a tear to my eye.
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Fear not, brothers and sisters, the passing of seasons. Mourn not for death of the summer, for the end of the heat and freedom that it brings. Instead stretch your arms high into the sky, like tree branches baring once again their old flesh, breathe the chilled air and celebrate fair autumn, in all its splendor.
Fall is the part of a song near the end when everything gets quiet, and in the peace and beauty something electric is loosed and swims through the body. I wish the whole song was that pretty, as do I wish the reds, browns, and oranges that come alive at this time would always paint the streets and grass.
Gone are sleepless nights, tossing about on top of blankets with obnoxious electric fans screaming in vain. Gone is the sun, blinding me at a ghastly hour, waking me from uneasy slumber. Gone are my tattered shorts, over-worn and smelling of camp fires and chlorine.
I will miss much about the summer, the flesh, the tans. The spontenaiety of reckless abandon. But it will return, and so I turn my affection upon the violent majesty of autumn.
September welcomes my underused brain back to study and schedules, which translates, I suppose, to procrastination and vice. I celebrate my birthday, but won’t remember a thing. Hoods return to sweatshirts, and order returns to the cacophony of daily life.
In October I will be joined by one thousand junior campers in witnessing my childhood heroes stoke A Fire Inside our sleepy town. I will raise my trumpet high into the air and welcome the first snowflakes as they float lazily from another world down to earth, here to remind us of the bitter cold that lies ahead.
And of course, we will celebrate with ornament and inebriation the sacred Halloween, the day when vandals and urchins come out to play. The day ordinary people dress themselves like the children of the dead and make beasts of themselves. A day so perfect in its marriage of darkness and beauty; you in somber resplendence, I hold. Yes, brothers and sisters, come All Hallow's, we will bark at the moon and shout at the devil.
There lies a delicate beauty in watching the world die. Fall is like a bittersweet elegy for a wounded earth, whispering remorse through the wind in the trees. The ground becomes painted in flesh tones, leaves turn blood red.
Embrace this time, and treat it well. Put on your dungaries and go dancing. Drink hot chocolate and don’t go easy on the marshmallows. Light a fire, read a book and settle in, because we’ve got a long, bleak road ahead of us.
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