"Each succeeding year..."

"Each succeeding year
unfolds wisdom,
beauty,
and holiness."

- Mary Baker Eddy



Like the leaves
I am
starting to
change
colors

brown to
white,
pale
to something as
mottled as the
fragile shell of a
woodthrush
held softly
beneath a feathered
breast

like the blossoms
I am beginning to
change texture

from firm,
to delicate

plump-lipped,
to lined and
deckled
all along
each petal's
fine edge
unblighted,
and
still ripe with the
fragrant first kiss of that summer,
long after morning's dew
retreats to
touch the
sun

bright days,
busy with the bustling pace
of earlier seasons --
diaper bags,
snacks for soccer,
the hurried meal before
rehearsals,
give way to
shorter days
and longer nights
filled with
quiet gratitude,
reflection,
remembering...

my steps,
once brisk with
self-determination and
sure intent,
have slowed to
a pace
less driven by
a future I can only,
almost,
grasp

less haunted by a
past I
once ran from

If I spend
countless hours
looking out to sea,
it is because the soft
ebb and flow of
timeless days
soothes me with her
rhythmic reliability,
comforts my
fear of endings
with this
promise,
"there is more,
there is more..,"

my branches
once limber and willowy
are
now
strong from
years of holding on
while they
-- like Isis --
reached for the sun

today,
I'm learning the
gift of
self-compassion

of letting go
without pain,
regret,
or sorrow --
I am ready

to give birth to,
yet,
another season's
colors

the
new
blush
of
another
rose...

"...seedtime
has come
to enrich earth
and enrobe man in righteousness;
may its sober-suited autumn
follow with hues of heaven,
ripened sheaves,
and harvest
songs."


- .ibid