AUTUMN 2012

AUTUMN'S PARADOX

Leona Choy

AUTUMN puts on a Paradox Performance:

She hurries to change scenes and costumes

making me dizzy with her diversity

as she passes briefly through between summer

and winter's blustery polar breath.

AUTUMN quickly comes and goes

a transient season of diminishing sunlight

and shortened fugitive days

still she turns once more to bless me

with the ineffable glow of a splendid sunset

leaves fall from soon bare branches

yet such glory in their surrender of life

a part of nature dying all around

amidst a time of bountiful harvest.

AUTUMN's paradox inevitably brings

sadness for diminishing mortal years

yet deep gratitude toward seasons past

rue for course of life I might have changed

now decreed and appointed

I must let go of what I cannot alter

embracing the joy of what's to come.

AUTUMN's paradox offers me time

to gather all my nostalgia

like creatures forage for their winter larder

I will store up my treasured memories

to savor on a frigid winter's night

around the warmth of the dying embers

of my friendly hearth

and rest content in God's best plan.