change

A small creeper clings to the wall, recessed and sheltered in a shady corner around the back of the house. Its leaves are pinnate, dark, and velveteen green, and they are laced in an intricate net of silver. My friends would be surprised to learn that I don't actually know what it is, but I don't, and it's there, with leaves of insubstantial size, little, but no less pretty than those of the exotic things that we import to fill our conservatories and terraria.

And now they're bleeding. Like seeping magma, the firey reds and oranges of the dying time are are stealing out over the surface of reluctant green. They will blaze, for a brief instant, in a bright show of crimson, then fall, and wither. And that is the sign of the times.