May your autumn find gently,
as the trees too loosen their hold
on all they once grew to believe was theirs.
May we also learn from the leaves š
how color brightens near the letting go,
how the hidden fire of life
is brightest
just before it returns to the ground .
Beneath the autumns call,
the dark receives it all;
stem, vein, rain-softened gold,
the red mushrooms hood of warning, š
the feast-bearing,
the secret labour of fungi
making kin of decay and birth.
Nothing is wasted here.
The forest remembers
what the fearful heart forgets:
that endings are not ultimate,
but spaces where the unseen
begins again its patient work.
So trust the humus of your days,
the crisis that became depth,
the sorrow that deepened into wisdom,
the love that becomes nourishment
long after its first form is gone.
Now as your own season turns,
You may you fall without fear
into the great belonging,
where life takes back the body it gave
and blesses it again into beginning.
For we too become colour for a while,
a brief bright changing
in the season of time,
and then returned
to the root, the rain, the worm,
the hidden womb of life
that is bearing
another spring.
August 26
