The Shedding

poems by me and others

In our church’s cloistered courtyard
I watch the autumn sky orange
behind the silhouetted Carrotwood
evergreen until pruned. 

Night and winter approach
like old versions of ourselves 
asking to be suffered
until spring’s first green.

The shedding has begun.
All words, save His, drag a soul to dust,
crack old mortar holding bricks together
while ballerina feet leap in B-20.

---

"Ye fearful saints, fresh courage take.
The clouds ye so much dread
Are big with mercy and will break
In blessings on your head."
-William Cowper, God Moves in a Mysterious Way

---

I go among the trees and sit still.
All my stirring becomes quiet
around me like circles on water.
My tasks lie in their places
where I left them, asleep like cattle.

Then what is afraid of me comes
and lives a while in my sight.
What it fears in me leaves me,
and the fear of me leaves it.
It sings, and I hear its song.

Then what I am afraid of comes.
I live for a while in its sight.
What I fear in it leaves it,
and the fear of it leave me.
It sings, and I hear its song.

After days of labor,
mute in my consternations,
I hear my song at last,
and I sing it. As we sing,
the day turns, the trees move.
-Wendell Berry, I Go Among The Trees