deeper things - autumn - Part 2

Day 13 Radiation

Today, so far, just tired. Kathy drove and I slept on and off up and back from Omaha. My throat is no better, but no worse, than it has been for the past few days. For me, "no worse" is a good day and gets me one day closer. I couldn't leave the subject of Autumn without a Mary Oliver poem. I know I am jumping the gun a little with this Autumn stuff, but with cooler mornings and some trees being first in line and showing they are ready, I am anxious to proceed and say goodbye to summer. How about this line:

"how everything lives, shifting
from one bright vision to another, forever
in these momentary pastures."

We just continue to be transformed from one bright vision to another...nothing stops changing, nothing can be held fixed. I am moving through this, and yes, despite my sceptical dark days, even this will be behind... underfoot... some distant memory...there are still colors to behold here... in my dark days, there are still colors on the edges of things...to be experienced and moved through and surrendered. And, when I get weary, He is still there, making me lie down in green pastures beside still waters.



Fall Song

Another year gone, leaving everywhere
its rich spiced residues: vines, leaves,

the uneaten fruits crumbling damply
in the shadows, unmattering back

from the particular island
of this summer, this NOW, that now is nowhere

except underfoot, moldering
in that black subterranean castle

of unobservable mysteries - roots and sealed seeds
and the wanderings of water. This

I try to remember when time's measure
painfully chafes, for instance when autumn

flares out at the last, boisterous and like us longing
to stay - how everything lives, shifting

from one bright vision to another, forever
in these momentary pastures.

~ Mary Oliver ~