and now Autumn comes in abundance
light, leaves, wildflowers, crops
a feast for our earthly senses

slowing, days shorten
falling, leaves covering the ground
baring, meadows and fields stripped

with it’s fierce appetite
we find ourselves at last
with only what we have stored up

soon enough stoking the fire
huddling in it’s warmth and light
season changing; stillness, silence, solitude come

these seasons of nature and life
a time to sow and a time to reap
a time to be born and a time to die

now in the winter of life
observing nature’s autumn glories
memories of past springs and summers

then, at last, ashes to ashes
and dust to dust, that the Spirit
may quicken and unify all in All

Herb Stone
here&now working poetry
October 6, 2021

photo by Tschiponnique Skupin

Author’s note: Stanza five references
Ecclesiastes 3:1-8 and the last stanza is based
upon the liturgy ‘The Order for the Burial of
the Dead’ from the ‘Book of Common Prayer.’
Christianity aside, many spiritual traditions and
religions have this concept of a spiritual
consciousness which extends beyond nature’s
bodily death.