Tag: leaves

Blinking in the Sun

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And I have traveled along the contours
of leaves that have no name. Here
where the air is wet and the light is cool,
I feel what others are thinking and do not speak,
I know pleasure in the veins of a sugar maple,
I am living at the edge of a new leaf.
~Arthur Sze, from “The Shapes of Leaves” from The Redshifting Web: Poems.



…when it has been centuries
since you watched the sun set
or the rain fall, and the clouds,
drifting overhead, pass as flat
as anything on a postcard;
when, in the midst of these
everyday nightmares, you
understand that you could
wake up,
you could turn
and go back
to the last thing you
remember doing
with your whole heart:
that passionate kiss,
the brilliant drop of love
rolling along the tongue of a green leaf,
then you wake,
you stumble from your cave,
blinking in the sun,
naming every shadow
as it slips.
~Joyce Sutphen from “From Out the Cave”

Just like an autumn leaf, the skin on the back of my hand has a branching network of veins, like so many tributaries in a river delta. This connection between human circulation and a chlorophyll-driven photosynthesis factory suggests a mysteriously organized origin. We, formed as living breathing creatures, journey to our ultimate destination back to dust.

Together we emerge from the shadows, blinking at the bright sun, thriving under its light.

Maybe “turning over a new leaf” is for people like me who seem to be overly attracted to old leaves. For the moment, I travel along each falling leaf’s edge, in love with their colors and flaws and gradual fading transparency.

Our Creator God falls in love with each one of us for all the same reasons. He created us to live and breathe and flash brilliant in our journey, our veins flowing with gratitude for His Word and World.

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Flawless Grace

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The woods is shining this morning.
Red, gold and green, the leaves
lie on the ground, or fall,
or hang full of light in the air still.
Perfect in its rise and in its fall, it takes
the place it has been coming to forever.
It has not hastened here, or lagged.
See how surely it has sought itself,
its roots passing lordly through the earth.
See how without confusion it is
all that it is, and how flawless
its grace is. Running or walking, the way
is the same. Be still. Be still.
“He moves your bones, and the way is clear.”
~Wendell Berry “Grace”

If I’m confused (as I often am)
about where I’ve been,
where I am, where I’m going,
I look to the cycles of the seasons to be reminded
all things (and I) come round

what is barren will warm to the sun and bud,
what buds will open up in blossom,
what blossoms will grow lush and fruit,
what flourishes will feed, fade and fall,
come to rest and be still.

All things come round,
making the way clear.
Grace forges a path
my bones must follow.

To shine in His stillness.
How flawless His grace.

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The Month of Departure

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October is nature’s funeral month.
Nature glories in death more than in life.
The month of departure is more beautiful
than the month of coming –
October than May.

Every green thing
loves to die in bright colors.
~Henry Ward Beecher

I don’t know…
I myself feel pretty drab these days, gray and fading,
with ripples and wrinkles,
more fluff than firm.
I’m reminded to hang on to an October state of mind:
go for raucous color rather than somber funereal attire,
so when it is time to take my leave, and I want to take my time –
I go brightly, in joyous celebration of what has been~~
and knowing, without any doubt, the colors are stunning
where I’m heading when I wander down the road a piece.

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Singing in the Leaves

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Now constantly there is the sound,
quieter than rain,
of the leaves falling.

Under their loosening bright
gold, the sycamore limbs
bleach whiter.

Now the only flowers
are beeweed and aster, spray
of their white and lavender
over the brown leaves.

The calling of a crow sounds
Loud — landmark — now
that the life of summer falls
silent, and the nights grow.
~Wendell Berry “October 10” from New Collected Poems.

If I were a color, I would be green, turning to gold,
turning to bronze, turning to dust.
If I were a sound, I would patter like raindrops and children’s feet.
If I were a smell, I would be dry earth soaking up a shower.
If I were a touch, I would be a leaf landing softly.
If I were a taste, I would be a bit sweet and a bit sour.
If I were a season, I would be the wistful goodbye hug of autumn.
But I am none of these, being enough for now.
Singing in the leaves,
I will come rejoicing,
Singing in the leaves.

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Days of Special Radiance

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Now over everything the autumn light is thrown
And every line is sharp and every leaf is clear,
Now without density or weight the airy sun
Sits in the flaming boughs, an innocent fire
That shines but does not burn nor wither.
The leaves, light-penetrated, change their essence,
Take on the gold transparence of the weather,
Are touched by death, then by light’s holy presence.

So we, first touched by death, were changed in essence,
As if grief grew transparent and turned to airy gold
And we were given days of special radiance,
Light-brimmed, light-shaken, and with love so filled
It seemed the heartbeat of the world was in our blood,
And when we stood together, love was everywhere,
And no exchange was needed, if exchange we could
The blessedness of sunlight poised on air.
~May Sarton “Poem in Autumn”

The brightness of the day becomes
the brightness of the night;
the fire becomes the mirror.

My friend the earth is bitter; I think
sunlight has failed her.
Bitter or weary, it is hard to say.
Between herself and the sun,
something has ended.

She wants, now, to be left alone;
I think we must give upturning to her for affirmation.
Above the fields, above the roofs of the village houses,
the brilliance that made all life possible
becomes the cold stars.

Lie still and watch: they give nothing but ask nothing.
From within the earth’s bitter disgrace,
coldness and barrenness
my friend the moon rises:
she is beautiful tonight,
but when is she not beautiful?
~Louise Glück from “October”

photo by Ben Gibson

This October Sabbath morning,
gray clouds lie heavy and unrelenting,
hovering low over the eastern hills.

A moment’s light snuck out from under the covers,
throwing back the blankets
to glow golden over the valley.

Only a minute of unexpected light underneath the gray,
then gone in a heartbeat (as are we) – yet –
O!  the Glory when we shine luminous together.

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Raking and Piling the Past

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I.
Cats pad from one sun-warmed
stone to another. Bees lament
the sweet ripe fruit

denied by spring’s late hard frost.
Birds stow mating calls
for another season.

Clouds scribble pithy prose,
criss-cross pages surrendered
by autumn’s azure.

Flower beds brown as they thin
and cricket song stitches  
a coverlet against evening chill.

II.
In my first autumn at home
since I was three
I rustle leaves at my feet
like a past I can rake and pile.
Energized by autumn’s aura
I glean clarity
of what lies fallow
and what I’ve put up for my winter.
~Nancy Jentsch “October Afternoon”

Out through the fields and the woods
   And over the walls I have wended;
I have climbed the hills of view
   And looked at the world, and descended;
I have come by the highway home,
   And lo, it is ended.
 
The leaves are all dead on the ground,
   Save those that the oak is keeping
To ravel them one by one
   And let them go scraping and creeping
Out over the crusted snow,
   When others are sleeping.
 
And the dead leaves lie huddled and still,
   No longer blown hither and thither;
The last lone aster is gone;
   The flowers of the witch hazel wither;
The heart is still aching to seek,
   But the feet question ‘Whither?’
 
Ah, when to the heart of man
   Was it ever less than a treason
To go with the drift of things,
   To yield with a grace to reason,
And bow and accept the end
   Of a love or a season?
~Robert Frost “Reluctance”

As I kick through piles of fallen leaves in the barnyard, I realize how close I am to becoming one of them. Within my own changing seasons, I have flourished and bloomed and fruited, but am now reminded of my fading, withering and eventual letting go.

I find I’m not nearly so bold anymore, instead trembling nervously when harsh winds blow me about, hoping the roots I’ve always depended upon will continue to nourish and sustain me.

This time of year, everything feels transitory — especially me.

When these thoughts overwhelm, I tend to hang on tighter rather than simply giving up and letting go. My feet stumble when I try to do the same tasks I did so smoothly years ago. I’m stubbornly wanting things to stay the same, reluctant for a transition to something different.

My only solace is that the heart of man — indeed my own hole-y heart — is transient compared to the holy Heart of the Creator. I am sustained by His steady Pulse, His ubiquitous Circulation, His impeccable Rhythm of Life and Death.

In that I trust.
In that I come to abandon my stubborn reluctance.

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Tohubohu in Living Color

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…the out-of-control Virginia creeper
my friends say I should do something about,
whose vermilion went at least a full shade deeper
at the provocation of the upstart blue,
the leaves (half green, half gold) suddenly hyper
in savage competition with that red and blue—
tohubohu returned, in living color.

God’s not nonexistent;
He’s just been waylaid
by a host of what no one could’ve foreseen.   
He’s got plans for you…

 …it’s true that my Virginia creeper praises Him,   
its palms and fingers crimson with applause,   
that the local breeze is weaving Him a diadem…
~Jacqueline Osherow from “Autumn Psalm”

With what stoic delicacy does
Virginia creeper let go:
the feeblest tug brings down
a sheaf of leaves kite-high,
as if to say, 
To live is good
but not to live—to be pulled down
with scarce a ripping sound,
still flourishing, still
stretching toward the sun—
is good also, all photosynthesis
abandoned, quite quits. Next spring
the hairy rootlets left unpulled
snake out a leafy afterlife
up that same smooth-barked oak.
~John Updike “Creeper”

The Virginia Creeper vine, its crimson leaves
crawl over the brow of our ancient shed
like a lock of unruly hair or a flowing stream,
a chaotic ruckus of color.

This humble building was a small chapel a century ago,
moved from the intersection of two country roads to this raised knoll
for forever sanctuary. It is befitting that every fall this former church,
now empty of sermons and hymns, weeps red.

Each winter the stripped bare vine
clings tightly through thousands of “holdfast” suckers.
The glue keeps the vine attached
where no vine has gone before.
Once there, it stays until pulled away;
it becomes an invincible foundation
to build upon in the spring.

Do not despair about the winter to come.
The Lord has plans and will not be moved
or ripped away,
even when His name is absent
from the public square.
He’s holding on, waiting on us,
waiting for the spring to burst forth again
and won’t ever, no never, let go.

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Wouldn’t It Be Cheaper?

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Every year we have been
witness to it: how the
world descends

into a rich mash, in order that
it may resume.
And therefore
who would cry out

to the petals on the ground
to stay,
knowing as we must,
how the vivacity of what was is married

to the vitality of what will be?
I don’t say
it’s easy, but
what else will do

if the love one claims to have for the world
be true?

So let us go on, cheerfully enough,
this and every crisping day,

though the sun be swinging east,
and the ponds be cold and black,
and the sweets of the year be doomed.
~Mary Oliver “Lines Written in the Days of Growing Darkness” from A Thousand Mornings

Nature is, above all, profligate.  Don’t believe them when they tell you how economical and thrifty nature is, whose leaves return to the soil. Wouldn’t it be cheaper to leave them on the tree in the first place?
~Annie Dillard from Pilgrim at Tinker Creek

It is a good thing I wasn’t assigned the role of Designer of the Universe because all would have gone awry in my dedication to resource management, efficiency and creating less waste. To avoid having to blow around, rake, pick up and compost all those fallen autumn leaves, my trees would keep their leaves forever, just like evergreens keep needles. I also would decide there should be fewer insect species, namely wasps, fleas, chiggers, bed bugs, mosquitoes and fruit flies. In addition, fewer rodents, viruses, toxic bacteria and pesky parasites. 

The list is endless: things would be different in my Thrifty Design Of All Things Natural.

But of course the balance of living and dying things would then be disturbed and off kilter.

Rather than worry about the wastefulness,  I should revel in the abundance as I watch death recreate itself to life again. Nature has built-in redundancy, teems with remarkable inefficiency and overwhelms with extravagance. 

As I too am just another collection of cells with similar profligacy, I can’t say much. I better not complain. Thank goodness for the redundancy and extravagance found in my own body, from the constant shedding of my skin covering to my over supply of nasal mucus during a upper respiratory infection helping me shed viral particles, to the pairing of many organs and parts allowing me a usable spare in case of system failure.

Sometimes cheaper costs more. Sometimes extravagance is intentional and rational, making cheap look … well, cheap.

Clearly things are meant to be as they are, thanks to a very wise Designer.

If I am ever in doubt, I simply look out at the leaf-carpeted front yard…or in the mirror.

Then it all makes sense.

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Such Letting Go

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the leaves believe
such letting go is love
such love is faith
such faith is grace
such grace is god
i agree with the leaves
~Lucille Clifton “Lesson of the Falling Leaves” from Blessing the Boats

The leaves are falling, falling as if from far up,
as if orchards were dying high in space.
Each leaf falls as if it were motioning “no.”
And tonight the heavy earth is falling
away from all other stars in the loneliness.
We’re all falling. This hand here is falling.
And look at the other one. It’s in them all.
And yet there is Someone, whose hands
infinitely calm, holding up all this falling.
~Rainer Maria Rilke “Autumn” translated by Robert Bly

Sometimes I wake from my sleep
with a palpitating start:
dreaming of falling,
my body pitching and tumbling
yet somehow I land,
~oh so softly~
in my bed,
my fear quashed and cushioned by
awaking safe.

I feel caught,
held tightly,
rescued amid the fall
we all do someday,
like leaves drifting down
from heaven’s orchard,
like seeds released like kisses
into the air,
the earth rises to meet me
and Someone cradles me there.

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A Tree with Happy Leaves

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Last night
the rain
spoke to me
slowly, saying,
what joy
to come falling
out of the brisk cloud,
to be happy again
in a new way
on the Earth!

That’s what it said
as it dropped,
smelling of iron,
and vanished
like a dream of the ocean
into the branches
and the grass below.

Then it was over.
The sky cleared.
I was standing
under a tree
with happy leaves,
and I was myself,

and there were stars in the sky
that were also themselves
at the moment
my right hand
was holding my left hand
which was holding the tree
which was filled with stars
and the soft rain–

imagine! imagine!
the long and wondrous journeys
still to be ours.
~Mary Oliver “Last Night the Rain Spoke to Me”

I’m walking under the trees
walking in and out of their shadows
walking step by step under the trees
so the leaves on their lowest branches
graze my bare head
as I walk slowly under the trees
so close to me they could have
their arms around my shoulders,
walking under the guardian trees.

I’m walking under the trees
plucking a leaf
and putting it in my pocket
so I won’t forget walking
under the cloak of these trees
thinking of nothing else
but the trees and me walking
under all their leaves and branches
walking all morning under the trees.
~Billy Collins “Walking Under the Trees”

I’m fortunate to have grown up in the land of trees, here in the Evergreen State of Washington. I spent hours and hours just walking or riding my horse in the woods of my childhood home. When I moved away to a state without many trees, I felt abandoned and lonesome. I had to find my way back.

Sometimes the woods can feel claustrophobic and I need to see a horizon to be aware of the comings and goings of the sun. Fortunately, on this farm where we raised our children, we can move easily from one to the other.

Each day, I’m reminded of the wondrous journey I am on. As a child, I always imagined living in a place of happy leaves. Growing up, I looked until I found it.

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