Those fortunate to live in a climate of changing seasons recognize the change with distinction. Each season anticipates its unique characteristics, and pre-anticipates the season after, and so on, and so on.
Today’s offering come from an old friend who was the first person I met on campus at University many years ago. It was autumn then, too, when we first began. The leaves he left behind in my life were the giving gifts of learning how to pray in the first place, and an appreciation of scripture to inform & inspire a prayer life.
This is what my friend wrote about what inspired his poem:
“Leaves have blessed me this fall. They’ve accompanied me on my regular walks to the Danube River. They’ve given me shade on hot summer days. But November trees are empty, and my walks to the Danube feel lonelier now. The gentle greens for eyes and fluttering sounds for ears are gone; instead, I hear the scratching of neighbours’ rakes piling leaves now fallen. Their 7-month run is over, their purpose is completed. They’ve breathed their last, but I continue to breathe the air they produced for me, and I feel blessed. Here are my thoughts in the form of a poem from one of those Danube River walks.”
Shuffle with me through the leaves, and contemplate this autumn of our soul:
While leaves are leaving
Leaves they shuffle
loose and listless
on the ground beneath my feet
that walk.
Shade is shed, veins are bled
browning comes, greening goes.
Air once breathed is now
Ex-pired
into me, so that I breathe.
Exhaled by them, inhaled by me:
In-spired.
Just one offering, one season
one last breath, one exhalation
and then another.
But I walk on,
While leaves are leaving.
R.W.Thiessen 15 Oct 2014, While walking to the Danube River
Curriculum of the Spiritual Life 