A Song for Autumn

Dear St. Peter’s-

The cool weather is settling in and it feels as though we are firmly in fall. This season is transitional in nature; the leaves are always changing and at different paces. Some already gone, some brilliant orange, golden yellow, and some still green. It’s a simply and good reminder to wonder and ask, where am I in this cycle today? 

The next several days will be tense for our country, our friends, our families, all of us. I encourage you to do what you need to to find that island of peace as Howard Thurman calls it. Visit your island as often as you need to. For me, that island is listening to the leaves in the trees. It’s a familiar and beautiful sound...and it’s one that promises transition. I listen closely every fall, knowing that the trees will be silent for many months to come. 

Whether you go for a walk or watch and listen to leaves with a warm cup of tea...take some time this week to soak up the gifts of autumn. Here is a poem by Mary Oliver, A Song for Autumn, a poem that captures the magic of autumn, letting go, and what is to come:

A Song for Autumn by Mary Oliver

Don’t you imagine the leaves dream now

     how comfortable it will be to touch

the earth instead of the

     nothingness of the air and the endless

freshets of wind? And don’t you think

     the trees, especially those with

mossy hollows, are beginning to look for

the birds that will come—six, a dozen—to sleep

     inside their bodies? And don’t you hear

the goldenrod whispering goodbye,

     the everlasting being crowned with the first

tuffets of snow? The pond

     stiffens and the white field over which

the fox runs so quickly brings out

     its long blue shadows. The wind wags

its many tails. And in the evening

     the piled firewood shifts a little,

longing to be on its way.