A cone of streetlight fell onto an autumn tree in a winter night, shining its leaves and giving them colour. Clusters of rounded leaves – orange, yellow, red, light green – hung like lanterns papered in torn tissue by Matisse. They formed garlands that swung in the breeze, each piece in place, but when the traffic lights changed from red to green, and a torrent of cars swept up the oil-dark road, each leaf flew freely and the lanterns were flotsam, swept to and fro, and the tree shook off its garlands to become one mass, shaking, shivering.