Tag: leaves

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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The Chance of One Sweet Last Hour

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Bending above the spicy woods which blaze,
Arch skies so blue they flash, and hold the sun
Immeasurably far; the waters run
Too slow, so freighted are the river-ways
With gold of elms and birches from the maze
Of forests. Chestnuts, clicking one by one,
Escape from satin burs; her fringes done,
The gentian spreads them out in sunny days,
And, like late revelers at dawn, the chance
Of one sweet, mad, last hour, all things assail,
And conquering, flush and spin; while, to enhance
The spell, by sunset door, wrapped in a veil
Of red and purple mists, the summer, pale,
Steals back alone for one more song and dance.
~Helen Hunt Jackson “October”


And how like a field is the whole sky now
that the maples have shed their leaves, too.
It makes us believers—stationed in groups,
leaning on rakes, looking into space. We rub blisters
over billows of leaf smoke. Or stand alone,
bagging gold for the cold days to come.
~David Baker from “Neighbors in October”

A touch of cold in the Autumn night—
I walked abroad,
And saw the ruddy moon lean over a hedge
Like a red-faced farmer.
I did not stop to speak, but nodded…
~T.E. Hulme from “Autumn”

We make a dwelling in the evening air, 
In which being there together is enough.
~Wallace Stevens from "Final Soliloquy of the Interior Paramour"

No other time of year is quite like the end of October. God prepares us for the long haul of winter gray by giving us one last sweet hour of golden memories to bag up as keepsakes for the dark cold nights ahead.

The air is now pristine after a wind and rain storm yesterday. I am finally seeing the golden glow of October.

As Robert Frost wrote, “nothing gold can stay” so I bid this gilded air goodbye for another year. I nod in recognition at the rising moon and wave at bare branches dancing leafless in the wind and celebrate the last sweet hours of October.

It’s now time to dwell together, huddled and cuddled, in the chill of the autumn evening air.

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A Love for Lightness

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…I have been younger in October
than in all the months of spring
walnut and may leaves the color
of shoulders at the end of summer
a month that has been to the mountain
and become light there
the long grass lies pointing uphill
even in death for a reason
that none of us knows…

my love is for lightness
of touch foot feather
the day is yet one more yellow leaf
and without turning I kiss the light
by an old well on the last of the month
gathering wild rose hips
in the sun
~W. S. Merwin from “The Love of October”

A wind gusts through shedding branches
stripping them bare
and carrying the leaves to fields
far away, to a diverse gathering
they have never known before:
chestnut, cherry, birch, walnut, apple, alder,
maple, parrotia, pear, oak, poplar, cottonwood
suddenly all sharing the same fate and grave,
each wearing a color of its own,
falling, falling, soon to blend with others.

There is an exquisite lightness in letting go
of all that feels familiar and safe,
for reasons none of us can actually comprehend.

Can’t help “falling” in love and falling in leaf…

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Every Leaf Speaks Bliss

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Fall, leaves, fall; die, flowers, away;
Lengthen night and shorten day;
Every leaf speaks bliss to me
Fluttering from the autumn tree.
~Emily Brontë, from Fall, Leaves, Fall

A steely torn silver, rusted along the edges;
the faint acidic yellow, like the backwash
of a polluted pond; earth-spatter

and gold spot in blotchy shallows;
grays the purpling of drenched slate;
and a pooling crimson with the false

bonhomie of the maraschino cherry –
all that unnecessary life turning to tinder.
The shadows were fragile-fertile

beyond the shocks of grimy hay in a spent field.
The India-ink, closeted blacks –
why choose the easeful darks?

Not that anything lay hidden there.
Was it only the spilled-over, abandoned life
and, from the wastage, the broken buds?
~William Logan “Leaf Color”

I too was once ablaze, alive, vibrant,
burning with color and passion,
blending hues together
in a blissful rainbow medley
before letting go to fly to my winter rest.

It is never wasteful to flame up
for an exuberant goodbye.
Broken beauty spills over to glory.

Autumn is never the end of my story.
Nor yours.

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Dropping the Colored Veils

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Winter is an etching,
spring a watercolor,
summer an oil painting
and autumn a mosaic of them all.
~Stanley Horowitz

And then in the falling comes a rising, 
as of the bass coming up for autumn’s last insects 
struggling amid the mosaic of leaves on the lake’s surface. 
We express it as the season of lacking, but what is this nakedness
— the unharvested corn frost-shriveled but still a little golden 
under the diffuse light of a foggy sky,
the pin oak’s newly stark web of barbs, the woodbine’s vines 
shriven of their scarlet and left askew in the air 
like the tangle of threads on the wall’s side 
of the castle tapestry—what is it but greater intimacy,
the world slackening its grip on the veils, letting them slump
to the floor in a heap of sodden colors, and saying,
this is me, this is my skeletal muscle, 
my latticework of bones, my barren winter skin, 
this is it and if you love me, know that this is what you love. 
~Laura Fargas “October Struck” from Animal of the Sixth Day

Something about the emerging nakedness of autumn reassures that we can be loved even when stripped down to our bones. We do make quite a show of lifting our veils and shedding our coverings, our bits and pieces fluttering down to rejoin the soil. What is left is meager lattice.

When the light is just right, we are golden, illuminated and illuminating, even if only barely there.

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