Northern Ivy

In my hometown at the end of october, the night comes early. If by any chance you go for a walk around nine, when everything seems to be going to sleep, when the wind that made the dry leaves swirl under the faint afternoon sun has stopped blowing, you will hear an unusual silence, as if the air, cold now, was so convincing in its evocation of the coming winter that everything and everybody had found a warm place to curl up.
If you walk alone, your thoughts will inevitably lead you to some sort of nostalgia, which might come from the foregone summer, the darkness and silence of the night, or the souvenir of a lost love. Nobody knows why, but autumn nights are a magnifying glass for beautiful sad memories.
If you turn your eyes to the sky you will notice that the stars shine more intensely than usual; if you are lucky like me, you might turn your head to a special star, a faraway star that shines a silvery glow and brings you comfort and joy, a star which is there all year long but never as beautiful as in these october nights. You will smile to it, and you'll know, even though you won't see it, that your autumn star will smile back.