A mottled goldfinch landed on the feeder today, already shed of its brilliant yellow summer feathers. There are still some beautiful monarch butterflies flitting around the bright zinnias and dahlias remaining in our garden, but soon the last one will be gone. The flowers, too, will drop their blossoms, and one day I will realize that the last sweet cherry tomato will have fallen to the earth. And summer will truly be over.
The world around us usually changes gradually, not in signature moments. I don't know exactly when it was that my hair turned all silver, or when I knew that I was totally, irredeemably in love with my wife. One day I realized I had become a grown-up,though I wasn't sure when or how. And one day I knew that my mother was slipping away into dementia, and I couldn't stop it. It happens in big and small things. I don't know exactly when it was that I realized I could sing "Silent Night" and "White Christmas" by heart, or when it happened that I could make a good pie crust every time. Or when it was that I was finally content to be myself, or when I realized that autumn was the season that had my heart.
All of these passages happened without fanfare or headlines in my journal. Always, always things change, slip away, sometimes silently, when we aren't paying attention. I look for it now, in the leaves drifting by the window, the woodbine turning scarlet on the trees, the smell of autumn carried in the morning air. I cannot hold on to summer, keep it from passing. I cannot hold on to my life, either. But I can trust that something new, something good, is always coming.
The Change
There is no trumpet fanfare,
no bold pronouncement,
for this turning,
for the blood red rising
in the green,
for the frill of asters
stirring on the edge of the world,
for the anthem of geese
trailing away over the hills.
It is here, too, in my bones,
the old ache and joy
as time runs out
from the bowl of life,
as I await the beauty
promised in every change,
as I hold an anxious breath,
wondering what surprise
may be seeded in the silence,
the sadness, the peace.
--Timothy Haut
No comments:
Post a Comment