This is the time of year for a favourite Old English word: the leaves are "fallowing", from the verb fealwian, "to turn yellow-gold". In Anglo-Saxon poetry fealo (fallow) is the pale golden shade of fire, linden shields, sword hilts and autumn leaves. They fallow, then they fall.
Tolkien's Winter Comes to Nargothrond
The summer slowly in the sad forest
waned and faded. In the west arose
winds that wandered over warring seas.
Leaves were loosened from labouring boughs:
fallow-gold they fell, and the feet buried
of trees standing tall and naked,
rustling restlessly down roofless aisles,
shifting and drifting.
Autumn in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight
Leaves are loosed from the linden and light on the ground,
And all the grass greys that green was before;
Then all ripens and rots that formerly arose;
And thus runs the year in yesterdays many...
We are surrounded by fallowing leaves at the moment, making the autumn golden and ablaze.