Watching Autumn. . .(reprise)

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Watching Autumn

A quiet, almost windless morning, mid-autumn.
Wide swaths of early sun lay soft
long shadows on the land.
Now comes the yielding up, giving back the best.
The last sweet fruits must fall. 

Shawls of rich color flare into the bright
darkness of late October air, like funeral flames
or flowers, so reluctant, letting beauty go.
Perhaps the ancient earth itself shows us
how to worship—breathing offerings
with no pretense, like wisps of incense
drifting up in fragrant matins,
our myths of Self disperse
in acts of morning praise.

Watching these dying autumn days
we do not pretend. Nor do we deny:
that something fierce in us of earth, more pure
than starlight piercing deep black sky—
the Creator’s beauty, His power lives in us
and wants to live forever, too.

 

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–Quilla