Autumn

It's been interesting coming into Autumn this year and reading on some peoples blogs and speaking and emailing with people who are on the other side of the world and going into Spring. Has me thinking about all sorts of things: the different seasons of life, how we walk with eahc other in those different seasons, the order of the universe, the specialness of each season.

It also reminded me of a poem that is one of my fav's which I thought I would share (thanks to Sonja for initiating me to Studdert Kennedy and to an ace guy called Don who bought me the book once he realised I was into him!):

Trees

Once glistering green,
With dewy sheen,
And summer glory round them cast:
Now black and bare,
The trees stand there,
And mourn their beauty that is past.

Look, leaf by leaf,
Each leaf a grief,
The hand of Autumn strips them bare.
No sound or cry,
As they fall and die,
Because they know that Life is there.

So stiff and strong,
The winter long,
All uncomplaining stand the trees.
God make my life,
Through all its strife,
As true to Spring as one of these.

So would I stand,
Serene and grand,
While age strips off the joys of youth;
Because I know
That, as they go,
My soul draws nearer to the Truth.

He is the Truth,
In very sooth,
The Word made flesh, who dwelt with men,
And the whole world shall ring
With the song of Spring
When thy soul turns to its Lord again.

When God's soft breath,
That men call death,
Falls gently on thy closing eyes,
Thy youth, that goes
Like the red June rose,
Shall burst to bloom in Paradise.