Fall is my favorite season. I realized this in Spokane, when autumn came to mean crimson foliage as well as the fruits of the last harvest: apples from Green Bluff, roasted acorn squash, and pumpkin pie made from scratch. Fall is nutmeg and cinnamon, oak leaves and acorns crunching beneath your feet, and the first frost that leaves its glistening breath on a cloudless morning. Fall is death with the promise of rebirth. It is the preface to resurrected life. It is a reminder that we live in the in-between, and that the glory of Christ will appear again, one day.
Autumn Walk
walking through
a pool of light
I hear leaves whisper
boughs of autumn fire
shed what they have
the ripened ears of summer
cool with returning dew
the altar below,
a layer of memory:
drops of shattered light
late frost bearing down
nights flush with the color
of day that won’t let go
now the offering is full,
and new birth calls
in the wind –
waiting
A Road to Emmaeus 