On Autumn’s edge
all the earth leans
silently into winter’s
long night.
Drained of color,
trees wait like
courageous sentinels
standing guard at the
gateway to great mystery.
Their roots hold ground,
naked branches ready,
wholly resolved to
embrace winter’s wind.
Those waking among us
prepare too for the deep time
when life is held open to death
and ego’s rainbow melts into
the grey winter horizon.
There is a Christmas gift
given in the time when
waiting is the only possibility.
In time, deep, deep time,
a remembering comes
to life as gently and gracefully
as Spring’s incarnation.
But now on the edge of
the long night it is only
an unutterable whisper,
carried on the winter wind
through soul’s bare limbs.
