When autumn came

It is a brand new season.

It is autumn.

No, it is fall.

Fall or Autumn?

Why two completely different sounding words in the English language that describe the same thing?

The older of the two words is autumn, which first came into English in the 1300s from the Latin word autumnus. (Etymologists aren't sure where the Latin word came from.) It had extensive use right from its first appearance in English writing, and with good reason: the common name for this intermediary season prior to the arrival of autumn was harvest, which was potentially confusing, since harvest can refer to both the time when harvesting crops usually happens (autumn) as well as the actual harvesting of crops (harvest). The word autumn was, then, a big hit.

Names for the season didn't just end with autumn, however. Poets continued to be wowed by the changes autumn brought, and in time, the phrase "the fall of the leaves" came to be associated with the season. This was shortened in the 1600s to fall. 

Of course, back in the old country, when we learnt in school about autumn and winter seasons, well, it was one of those textbook concepts for me that had no relevance to the real world in which I lived where the four seasons were hot, hotter, hottest, and rainy.  Leaves turning yellow and the trees going bare were, well, book knowledge.  At school, we studied about deciduous trees that shed their leaves, while the mango and the tamarind and everything else looked green all the time.

When visiting the old home in Neyveli, in 2002,
the gardener working for the foreigner living there was happy to pose for me under the tamarind tree in the backyard

Decades later, for one whose formative years were in the hot and nearly-equatorial southern part of India, I now find living without the four seasons almost unimaginable. 

Years ago, when living in Southern California, where it is spring and summer most of the year, an acquaintance decided to quit her job and head back to Chicago--the place where she grew up. "I miss the four seasons" she said.  I couldn't understand it then. I now know what she meant.  I look forward to the seasons changing. There is something magical, profound, about it.

A summer evening by the Willamette

The temperature will continue to drop, the misty rains will settle in for the long haul, and the sun will become an occasional visitor.  I will yet again wonder where the hummingbirds and crows and turkey vultures and other birds go.  It will be a long while before I will see them darting about and making noises.  I will miss them. Until next spring!

When Autumn Came
By Faiz Ahmed Faiz

This is the way that autumn came to the trees:
it stripped them down to the skin,
left their ebony bodies naked.
It shook out their hearts, the yellow leaves,
scattered them over the ground.
Anyone could trample them out of shape
undisturbed by a single moan of protest.

The birds that herald dreams
were exiled from their song,
each voice torn out of its throat.
They dropped into the dust
even before the hunter strung his bow.

Oh, God of May have mercy.
Bless these withered bodies
with the passion of your resurrection;
make their dead veins flow with blood again.

Give some tree the gift of green again.
Let one bird sing.