A deciduous journey

Outside my window, there is a tree.  I first noticed it in the summer when the leaves were lush and abundant.  It seemed to be a happy tree.  What tree would not be happy in the summer?  Pic knickers lunched in it's shade.  Star crossed lovers carved their name in the bark, and someone even hung a swing.  It was easy being green in the summer.  July and August were dreams come true and September was the magnum opus.  Life was not supposed to change for the tree, but it did.  Each morning, there was a visible struggle to remain green.  The sun hid it's rays and the daylight went home early.  The winds blew and it took the strength of ten men to hold the leaves in their place.  Sometime in October, the tree grew tired and relaxed into a beautiful vision of orange and yellow.  He thought that it wasn't as bad as he perceived it to be.  He actually liked the smell of pumpkin soup from the house and the scarecrow placed by the gaslight for decoration.  He liked the children dressed like cowboys and Indians eating taffy apples at the Fall Festival.  He enjoyed the lull of the season and mulled apple cider.  It was all picturesque until the winds picked up and became colder, stronger and frequent.  He tried to grab his leaves and pull them to himself, but when the winds died down, he was bare.  Each day, another part of himself was revealed.  Each day something showed that had once been hidden.  by Thanksgiving, there was nothing left to hide.  How could he live exposed to the elements, alone in the moonlight, abandoned by the sun?  It was all so bleak, but the short days passed quickly and in the night sky, no one discerned his nakedness.  It was quite peaceful.  He slept.  He slept months until he decided to just remain that way.  He could sleep the rest of his life.  In February, he began to feel something working inside him.  It was something dreadfully wonderful.  It made him afraid and it made him alive.  Could it be that he had not been forgotten after all?  The Sun greeted him earlier and earlier and the snow and ice turned to simple rain.  At the end of March, he sneezed and out poured the greenest leaf.  It was greener than when he last saw it and it certainly was prettier than when he last saw it.  Each day, they got greener and more greens begot more greens until he was full again.  In June he waved in the breeze happy and unafraid of autumn and winter.  Spring and summer would come.  It had to come.  God said it had to come, so even if trouble is here for a little while; it can't last always.  If there is an ending, there is a new beginning.  There is always a new beginning.