Harvest
Standing in a trembling grove of aspen,
tasting the fire in their release—
I see all the moments of my journey
as shimmering leaves
on the Tree of Life.
And I see how all of these moments—
even the ones I have prayed
could stay—will turn to gold,
speak their story, and fall
back into this black earth.
How I never could have never imagined
this face of mine after five decades—
the unique shape of this life of mine,
the particular harvest baskets I carry
full of the seeded grasses of childhood,
the plums of love, the late summer
blackberries of longing, the boughs
of young elderhood that beckon to me now.
We are travelers through a life
that re-writes itself again and again,
season after season, so we become
unrecognizable even to ourselves.
And as time passes, we become
more intimate with all that is transitory—
resting in to the unknowable,
all the urgent questions falling away,
become chaff for the next growing season.
So now there is this quiet bliss that arises
from this particular quality of light—
the scent of these leaves, the silver crescent
of moon in violet sky, the imprint
of all we love, of all that loves us.
As evening comes, starlings murmurate –
spectacular oracles speaking
in the language of wings and wind—
and I feel the autumn weaving
its magic again on the loom of my being
for another round of seasons—
And this blessed weight
of my harvest baskets
filling and emptying
and filling once again.