Right outside my North window is a giant Soapberry tree, left a brilliant yellow by the most vibrant autumn in recent memory. Of course, the sunlight itself never reaches that window, but as it arcs low in the sky over Sim Park, every leaf of that magnificent tree throws it's oblate reflection into every corner of my tiny world, turning everything I own, every book and broken vase, every poem, every animal, every molecule of air we breathe into a shining, living gold. I swim in gold, I feast with ochre, I dream in a language spoken only by yellow. I rest my bones upon the trinity of the sun's crystal crimson, the sky's electric blue, and the soul of this tree. I sleep within the living death of every leaf. I take summer beneath my winter blanket and hold her close. I awake to the saffron songs of night birds who sing only in memory. I rise within a shadow as golden as the sun itself. I hold fast to that living sun and take it, burning holes in every pocket I own, with me wherever I go. It is then, and only then, that I am ready for whatever winter has in store.