November
Thanksgiving is in two days. My grocery store Giant has small sections of fall and Thanksgiving merchandise—except for the foods needed for Thursday’s feasting. Christmas decorations are out in the store as well as Christmas candy—Poinsettias, too. But I’m still l trying to take in all the lovely fall colors. Just two more days before we’ll listen to Christmas music. And this Sunday starts Advent.
With all this in mind, I wrote this fall poem. I’ve been thinking about how beautiful I find the trunks and branches of trees when the leaves are gone. I love the colors of fall trees but then I also delight in the bare beauty of leaf-empty trees (especially against a deep blue, early evening sky). I also love the wind in the trees - whether the trees have leaves or not. The movement of empty limbs against a blue sky or a gray sky easily catches my attention. And it is so much easier to spot birds in branches that have lost their leaves.
Monday I drove with Elspeth to Wilmington, DE and enjoyed looking at all the beautiful trees in Chadds Ford and Wilmington. This area is where I grew up and where I fell in love with autumn. It was so nice to be driving on familiar roads and feeling the fall vibes that I love so much.
(The other two poems I wrote last November)
The beauty of
The bone. Tall God
Must see our souls
This way, and nod.
John Updike
And there we all
stand, each Sunday,
having taken
the bread and wine,
hearing from the
pastor these words,
“Lift your faces,
receive the Lord’s
benediction.”
We lift up our
hands; we open
our eyes. In front
of me with her
little arms out
wide and her palms
upturned, fingers
strumming the air,
is Jubilee.
She is waiting—
quiet, like me.
The pastor’s words
wind their way through
us like the fall
breeze stirring the
trees outside. It
moves in and out
leaf-empty dark
branches stretching
up to take in
each ray of light,
while deeper down
roots intertwine.
(I am still trying to figure out how I want the lines to go. Here is the second version.)
The beauty of
The bone. Tall God
Must see our souls
This way, and nod.
John Updike
And there we all
stand, each Sunday,
having taken
the bread and the wine,
hearing from the
pastor these words, “Lift
your faces, receive the
Lord’s blessing.”
We lift up our
hands; we open our
eyes. In front of
me with her little arms
out wide and her palms
upturned, fingers
strumming the air,
is Jubilee. She is waiting—
quiet, like me.
The pastor’s words
wind their way through
us like the fall breeze
stirring the trees outside.
It moves in and
out leaf-empty dark branches
stretching up to take
in each ray of light,
while deep down
roots intertwine.
“Let us stretch ourselves out towards him,
that when he comes he may fill us full."
~ St. Augustine
The tree across the street,
the one I see framed in our front window,
was slowly losing its leaves,
until yesterday’s wind came.
Now only a scattering of red and orange remain,
exposing a maze of branches
reaching out,
stretching up.
And then there is my heart,
how gradually I reveal it
to me to you to God.
How my hopes reach out
and then stretch
and stretch up,
waiting to be filled.
And in the spring,
the tree I see in our window shines
in the afternoon sun,
rich with its pink flowers
and its green leaves.
The trees along my way
The trees in winter,
naked and exposed,
look as if they are a tangle of hands reaching up—
the limbs and branches taking hold of the sun for warmth
and grabbing at the blue sky for cover.
And as the sun goes down,
when the sky holds indigo before it falls to black,
they are a silent silhouette of waiting.
