A red car points up the hill like a lacquered nail. “Zest” proclaims its license plate, a commentary on the autumn landscape.

Were there a volume knob for color, it would be cranked high. Green leaves haloed by yellow or already fully ablaze reach from dark boughs. Tongues of orange fire lick the asphalt and gravel paths. As I walk, I extend my own branches and turn my palms upward, ready, with them, to ignite. A row of maples flames but is not consumed. God’s voice could rumble from their scarlet flicker, but instead I hear only the shh shh shh of scuffed leaves.