In Memory of My Sister Marie Joyce

The Ache of Autumn

The trees grow more restless;
October wind weaves through them:
they shake their arms in dismay
as if to fight the coming cold
and the grief of leaves going.

Autumn air does a heart-dance
on branches already gone barren:
the misty air clings to golden leaves.
making the trees bend even lower.

It is a season to hold the trees close,
to stand with them in their grieving.
It is a time to open our inner being
to the misty truths of our own goodbyes.

Autumn comes. It always does.
Good-bye comes. It always does.
The trees struggle with this truth today
and in my deepest of being, so do I.

Every autumn, nostalgia fills me:
every autumn, yearning holds me.
I cling to the ripeness of summer,
knowing it will be many long months
before I can catch a breath of lilac,
or the green of freshly mown grass.

And so I begin my fallow vigil,
remembering the truth of the ages.
Unless the wheat seed dies
it cannot sing a new birth,
Unless summer gives in to autumn
springtime will never embrace me.

-Joyce Rupp