Yes, it's the first day of class...new semester unfolding. I cannot tell for certain why all of a sudden, things seem a bit different than I remembered. Old faces turn bile and smiles turn flat like yesterday's beer. I cannot tell for certain why it moved me. I, being the willow and all, was built for this kind of circumstance. While the seasons come and go, rivers run wild and then the day after, it runs dry, winds sweeps east and wind sweeps west...changes...never seemed to bother me. But today I swayed way off course with the soft swoosh of the autumn wind. My branches almost broke. All because of a stranger's face. A stranger with a name...with white feathers on her hair. Her face once friendly but days passed...though her face remained pleasant, but her presence wrapped me in winter's cold. Perhaps a stranger can still be an essential part of a tree's life. Perhaps that warm lavander that her soul once radiated may never come again even if summer comes. But I shall enscribe her name upon my scroll.