Stairs in the fall

Fall is a beautiful stranger
shifting before our eyes
we think we know, but then
whose brilliant colors slip
to another tree, another field,
one long transition: motion’s curve
unstopping on its winter path.
At each new moment’s glance,
we find the season changed
—and so have we.

November 2019

Early Dark

The early dark slaps my face
like an unexpected loss, and yet
I greet it like an old friend.
With it return cold winds, promises
of frigid winter midnights; but now
here in the baffling first moments
I set aside its threats and welcome
something dark and cold
and intimately familiar.

November 2019

Unexpected Moon

The unexpected moon
is a gift to delight children
looking up at something new
in a place it shouldn’t be:
“Look,” says the Universe—
“you thought you knew, but
look again!” And so we do,
we do, we do, over and over
now looking past the moon
for another unexpected piece,
out of place, hidden just for us.
We will delight to find it:
for we are children, all of us
compared to the ages spent
hiding pieces of the universe
in just these certain ways—and
forever such shall we remain.

November 2019

Discovery

Discovery belongs to the discoverer:
a fact that age forgets, as if naïveté
were shameful, or innocence a sin.
But no! In fact, the things you found
belong to you; your joy in that moment
is yours forever and for free. Rather, not
bullied into cynical self doubt, stand
as explorers have since human eyes
first opened on an unseen world,
revel in each leaf and blade of grass,
and in it all find the majesty of God
in an endless revelation of creation.






November 2019

Fall

Fall is drowsy, a meandering
toward the dreaming sleep of winter;
it is not death, it does not mourn
but flings color towards the sky
in celebration of a sabbath rest:
come spring, there is new life
and work to be done in summer—
but now is time for pondering
the years behind, and yet to come
in stillness, and comfort, and joy.






November 2019