There is a season for everything,
A time for giving birth,
A time for dying.
A time for tears,
A time for laughter,
A time for mourning,
A time for dancing. (Eccles3:1,2,4)
The trees grow more restless;
October wind weaves through them.
They shake their arms in dismay
as if to fight the coming cold
and the grief of leaves going.
Autumn air does a heart-dance
on branches already gone barren;
the misty air clings to golden leaves,
making the trees bend even lower.
It is a season to hold the trees close,
to stand with them in their grieving.
It is a time to open my inner being
to the misty truths of my own goodbyes.
Autumn comes. It always does.
Goodbye comes. It always does.
The trees struggle with this truth today
and in my deepest of being, so do I.
Every autumn nostalgia fills me;
every autumn yearning holds me.
I cling to the ripeness of summer,
knowing it will be many long months
before I catch a breath of lilac
or the green of freshly mown grass.
And so I begin my fallow vigil,
remembering the truth of the ages:
unless the wheat seed dies
it cannot sing a new birth.
Unless summer gives in to autumn
springtime will never embrace me.
