"I miss you most of all my darling when autumn leaves fall"

[jack_babalon]

The falling leaves drift by the window
The autumn leaves of red and gold
I see your lips, the summer kisses
The sun-burned hands I used to hold

Since you went away the days grow long
And soon I'll hear old winter's song
But I miss you most of all my darling
When autumn leaves start to fall
~ Nat King Cole

The leaves are sitting on their branches all dressed up in Jack O'lantern oranges, burnt ochres & the red of dried blood. They look like shy girls waiting for the right guy to come along at the suicide prom. The rains coming down hard, like a broken promise, and each drop plucks the leaves free from the ledge. Now they can spiral down, their first and only dance through midair where they will land as softly as dreams land on the pillows of children. But some fly on bursts of gusts, a flock of them snatched up at once and they look like birds of fire migrating across the gray morning backdrop. I snag one of the air, catch it without thought or intent. I'm huddled in a doorway soaked to the bone, two holes in each shoes, puddle socks and smoking my second to last cigarette. I hold the leaf up to the dull silver light of the amnesia sun. I read between the lines, the dried canals of veins and can quickly decipher that this is a message i've intercepted between angels. A love letter really, written with time across a thousand pages of Autumn and delivered by the breath of weather. I read it, twice to make sure my enochian's not rusty. It is a poem from a solider stationed at the Western towers of the Shining City that he has written to a brother warrior in the Seraphim Guard. It's hard to make out the names, because an angels name does not have a concrete defintion, but rather a play of meanings that fluctuate with the presence of other symbols. Their names are Hows rather than Whats. But still the message (as far as I can read) tells his love to follow the silver arrow of Yesod and meet him(her?) under the golden oceans of Tiphareth... or something like that. I hold the leaf by the stem between my fingers, navigating it into the wind currents. I find a direction, West of course, and release this invisible message where it falls at first and just inches from my boots rises suddenly and takes off, up, up and over the expanse of my vision. I take one more drag off my smoke and step back out into the elements.