Stick Season
Bare branches before a flat grey sky.
Dropped leaves first rustle in the wind
Then, next week, yield to water and bugs,
Smelling musty, giving energy, then resting in stillness,
Completely,
Until whatever’s next arises.
The sap lines, blue strings between trunks,
Gnarled like the veins of frequent donors,
Appear once again, reminders of the ebb and flow that turn the seasons.
Flow, pulsing through time, fueled by the love
That chose this improbable boy when it cracked open time,
Grins knowingly in the cold, a warm glow deep in the roots
That connect us all.
Why sadness at the loss of lush,
Once green and new, born from light and dirt
Now withered and returning home?
Imagine the homecoming joy, deep below,
That the dark eyes down there see
As light, stored in sweetness, returning to ground,
Resting there for a while, like the prodigal son,
Before choosing birth again, and the chance
To grow beyond the shallow thought
"I am what all of creation
Wants me to believe I am."
© 2017 Peter Colgan