A melancholy time

The big tree in my neighbours’ garden was changing colours. From green to yellow, to golden to brown. Like the trees in the Zuiderpark not far from my house. Green-yellow-red-golden-brown. Like the trees along the canal. Like the trees covering the hills around Tübingen last week – breathtakingly beautiful. Like autumn in the parks of Kiev. Yes... like in Kiev...

Somehow I always end up in Kiev. Fall scenery everywhere no matter how gorgeous is always just a reminder of the fall in Kiev. Just as blooming chestnuts in The Hague are a reminder of Kiev’s chestnut prelude to the summer in the beginning of May. Kiev just won’t let me go...

A melancholy time! So charming to the eye! 

Your beauty in its parting pleases me - 

I love the lavish withering of nature, 

The gold and scarlet raiment of the woods, 

The crisp wind rustling o'er their threshold, 

The sky engulfed by tides of rippled gloom, 

The sun's scarce rays, approaching frosts, 

And gray-haired winter threatening from afar.