Autumn 2020

We welcome your new season
the trees singing a different melody in their breezes.
Leaves allow their colors to change
shouting with the brightness of red and brown and yellow;
purple and orange.
All restraint disappears in the transformation. 
Dramatically we will wake to find them
dancing free
of the branches and limbs that held them,
finished providing shade and shelter…
free now to line the bed of winter coming.

Oh that it would be so easy for us!

To marvel at the change in my neighbor’s life
to see the colors, each one, as the brush of God on the earth
to stand and allow the winds of fall to speak.
To welcome what we could never have imagined
and embrace your way of grace.
Remind me that change brings both sadness and joy;
it is the road of life we travel.
The street made with gravel and pavement,
curves and hills that help shape us for the long stretches
of what seems
like
nothing. 
Our knees ache on the downhill
our hearts race at the steep inclines
always looking for an easier way.

Perhaps this is enough.
To stop us from looking elsewhere
and point us in the direction of living
this season, this moment, this life.
The hand of a friend makes better the journey
even when it comes from a distance.
Here…just offer me yours
as I offer you mine.
We have not walked through this before;
we may need each other this time.
– Vona Rose Wilson, 9/22/2020