THE WITHERED LEAF
Oh! mark the withered leaves that fall
In silence to the ground;
Upon the human heart they call,
And preach without a sound.
They say, So passes man’s brief year!
To-day, his green leaves wave;
To-morrow, changed by time and sere,
He drops into the grave.
Let Wisdom be our sole concern,
Since life’s green days are brief!
And faith and heavenly hope shall learn
A lesson from the leaf.
-William Lisle Bowles
Joseph Bottum shares this poem on Substack today:
A LAMENT
We who are left, how shall we look again
Happily on the sun, or feel the rain,
Without remembering how they who went
Ungrudgingly, and spent
Their all for us, loved, too, the sun and rain?
A bird upon the rain-wet lilac sings —
But we, how shall we turn to little things
And listen to the birds and winds and streams
Made holy by their dreams,
Nor feel the heartbreak in the heart of things?
-Wilfred Wilson Gibson
Today is Saturday, and I am attending a wedding, which is a cause for joy. According to statistics, 70% of weddings are held on Saturdays these days, but in the Orthodox Church Sunday is the preferred day. Sunday is The Lord’s Day since the Resurrection, and the day for celebration and feasting, while Saturday is the day of rest, when we remember those who have fallen asleep in death and rest in their graves. Here is another poem that ties the remembrance of death to the season, and to the One who mitigates our sorrow over it.
AUTUMN
The leaves are falling, falling as from far off,
as though far gardens withered in the skies;
they are falling with denying gestures.
And in the nights the heavy earth is falling
from all the stars down into loneliness.
We are all falling. This hand falls.
And look at others; it is in them all.
And yet there is One who holds this falling
endlessly gently in his hands.
-Rainer Maria Rilke
THE GEESE
My father was the first to hear
The passage of the geese each fall,
Passing above the house so near,
He’d hear within his heart their call.
And then at breakfast time he’d say:
“The geese were heading south last night,”
For he had lain awake till day,
Feeling his earthbound soul take flight.
Knowing that winter’s wind comes soon
After the rushing of those wings,
Seeing them pass before the moon,
Recalling the lure of far-off things.
-Richard Peck
Gladsome Lights 