The Weight of Gold

The trees do not ask for permission to change. They simply let go. There is a quiet violence in the way the green retreats, replaced by a color that burns before it falls. We spend our lives trying to hold onto the summer, as if the warmth were a promise that could be kept. It is not. The season is a brief interruption in the long, cold patience of the earth. To witness this turning is to understand that beauty is not a state of being, but a state of leaving. We watch the hills ignite, knowing the frost is already waiting in the shadows of the valley. We stand in the path of the wind, feeling the air grow thin and sharp, and we wonder if we are meant to keep anything at all, or if we are only meant to pass through, like the light that touches the leaves for a single, final moment.

Zara Otaifah has captured this fleeting transition in her image titled Kenosha Pass in Fall. It holds the warmth of a season that is already turning toward the dark. Does the gold feel heavier to you, knowing it will soon be gone?