In a few weeks, these leaves will be off the trees and my walk will be in areas where the sky is more visible and where the wind will feel harsher. At the moment the trees are half and half, and only a hard frost will finish off the summer plumage. The changing seasons always make me feel there is forward movement, even if it is to the same season I have seen every year and will again next year. They never are the same and neither am I.
But God is.
I love this poem written by Mary Baker Eddy, in girlhood, in a maple grove:
AUTUMN
Quickly earth’s jewels disappear;
Ere autumn blanch another year,
Touched by the finger of decay
For joy, to shun my weary way,
The languid brooklets yield their sighs,
Of sunny days and cloudless skies,
The wild winds mutter, howl, and moan,
And frightened fancy flees, to roam
Where ghosts and goblins stalk.
The cricket’s sharp, discordant scream
Fills mortal sense with dread;
More sorrowful it scarce could seem;
Yet here, upon this faded sod,
When songsters’ matin hymns to God
Are poured in strains so sweet,
My heart unbidden joins rehearse,
When mingling with the universe,