AUTUMN FIRES?

Where the heck is the crisp, cool weather featured in poetry and prose about Autumn?

Why is it 85 degrees outside? Why are my lips chapped and my nose bleeding?

Why does every news hour open with urgent voices harkening "red flag warnings" in the brush filled hills and valleys of California?

It seems like every single year, as we roll into October, California catches on fire and burns until Thanksgiving.

Kind of puts a whole new spin on Robert Louis Stevenson's poem - Autumn Fires.

In the other gardens
And all up the vale,
From the autumn bonfires
See the smoke trail!

Pleasant summer over
And all the summer flowers,
The red fire blazes,
The grey smoke towers.

Sing a song of seasons!
Something bright in all!
Flowers in the summer,
Fires in the fall!