October's Last Lecture

The trees are undressing in public again— no shame, no apology, just color falling like confessions too beautiful to keep. Every leaf is a resignation letter: Dear branch, I've given you everything. I'm letting go now. Please don't take it personally. The maples go first— always dramatic, always red, always making an exit that demands applause. The oaks hold on the way old men hold opinions— stubborn, brown, rattling in the wind long after everyone else has moved on. November waits in the wings with its gray script and shorter days, but October— October is the month that knows how to leave a room. What the trees teach us every fall: letting go is not the same as losing. Sometimes what falls becomes the soil for what comes next.