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.
This morning I got out into the fresh fresh, rain washed air, still damp and loaded with nourishment from a mysterious and secret recipe, and I walked to and along the creek, and heard an unfamiliar and curious bird song. I wasn’t prepared for that, not having my phone and its Merlin bird app with me — I was trying to be a little bit un-modern.
I heard several bird songs, as it turned out, and saw a flurry of tiny birds on the paved path, scurrying under the privets. There was to be no sunshine today, but I still felt the pull of the reality, “Light of Light, True God of True God,” my own Source of Life.
I looked forward to a lunch date in a short while, so I couldn’t explore as long as I’d have liked; I turned back, along my usual route, past the pineapple guava that I have known and noticed for as long as I can remember. Many huge fruits were on the ground, much larger than anything mine ever produces… probably because it gets full sun all day long. I bent over to pick up one that hadn’t been bruised, but it was hard. Odd, that it hadn’t ripened…. and then I saw, a few feet away, the horror: the whole tree had been hacked to the ground, and I became aware of a large empty space above me.
Construction workers — or was it a demolition crew? — were in the driveway of the property on which the tree had lived, modestly, on the very corner of the lot, where it was not in the way of anything. Maybe a new owner was starting Something New. There the Modern attitude hit me where it had hit the feijoa, the idea we have of thinking that the best way is, Cut it all down and start over.
I looked through my old posts just now for a picture of that tall bush. I had mentioned it several times, but never took its picture. The owner of the property did not live in the house on that property, I learned that much some years ago. I also know that he never appreciated the guava for what it was; he always pruned it at exactly the wrong time, so that it rarely had a chance to show how many fruits all that sunshine could have sweetened to lusciousness.
I did love that tree. A few times I gathered a few of its fruits off the ground, and once my grandson and I picked its blooms to take home and add to our breakfast. I wonder if anyone else in the neighborhood will notice its absence?
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.
The moon is beautiful tonight, playing hide and seek behind the clouds, rising above my neighbor’s redwood tree. I know we are not quite at the full moon, but rain is expected on that date, and this moon is lovely. I can’t take a very good picture with my little phone, but I tried anyway.
Gladsome Lights 