HARVEST

Standing in a trembling grove of aspen

tasting the fire in their release—

I see all the moments in my life

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 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 only the 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.