The autumn tonic awakens
sinews and muscle,
tendon and bone,
born onward by
breezes high and unfelt
save to the boughs
of beech and maple
which twist and toil.
In the cool shade of the cedar,
where in summer,
a veil of mosquitoes swarmed,
only the persistent gurgle of the river
drowns the boisterous world
with its aching need for attention
and pursuit of the unattainable;
the unnecessary.
Here a leaf falls
and alights the water
and is swept away to be seen no more
save perchance
by the industrious eyes of the beaver
furiously fortifying his homely lodge
before the snows of November fall.
Here life persists purer but unadorned,
cognizant of necessity
and impervious to the designs
of lustful impertinence.
The bespeckled sky
reflected in the crisp amber waters
invites pause
and introspection
of a healthy sort
with an eye toward our own
transitory essence and impiety.
Yet it speaks too
of the grandness of existence
witnessed in the colorful palette
of the tide of leaves
and the value of our own presence,
short as it may be, upon this earth.
Soft whispers there are as well
singing wispy psalms
of a grander consolation.
We know, though, we cannot remain.
As the leaves,
which flourish then falter,
we are compelled,
by gravity or by need
to return.
Yet by straining but a little;
by bucking against the reins of resignation,
we may retain the Moment,
to return grasping in our worn palm
a measure of knowledge of the holy;
our ebinezer,
our testament.
For there is no wisdom in fear;
nor virtue in compulsion.
Our feet may bear us on
another hour
another mile
filled with a thousand interruptions
that emerge like gnarled roots
aimed at tender ankles.
Little will they prevail
against the one whose mind is as stilled
as the mighty trunks
of oak and pine
whose canopies flail in the storm
but who remain firmly rooted amid the tumult;
or who strive for the purity
of those clear waters which bear,
in time, all their sins to the sea;
or to the one
whose hope is in the Lord,
Creator and Liberator.
We train our eyes, then,
on the skein of geese
fleeing southward
til they disappear behind a golden stand of aspen.
We marvel at their fortitude,
their memory and perseverance.
Even out of sight we hear their
fading honks bearing away into the quickening night.
We sink.
And we breathe
and we pray.
We hear the song of autumn.
