The Red Death

The days grow shorter. With each moon-rise there are newly deceased leaves resting on the cold, frost-covered soil. Their lace-like edges adorned with death's crystal kiss. Forever red, never green again. Their death paints the forests with vibrant colors, and no one stops to mourn the loss of life. The trees let go of their dead outer furs, showing bare, ugly bones. Their skeletons stand starkly against a pale winter's sky, and only then does it seem fitting, because the bones now mourn the red ones, forever gone. But after a few bitter-cold months, small cocoons start to form along the tree's barren limbs, promising life during the new season. They forget their lost red coat and sing for the green yet to come. For they will look alive again. Forgetting the red death. Seen as skeletons no more.