Of Fall and Winter
All is vivid green here today, the sustained rain
sheeting its clear wrapped folds down all around me,
the hug of fall, water windows installed as this flowing world turns.
And as the world does, so does a new rainy season revolve, rolling into paradise.
I’ve lived through this change nearly seventy winters now,
yet each arrival is fresh as my mother’s fairy grass surrounding me, streaming
from my back door through the slopes and terraces below.
My new green land anchors this grass river, branches, leaves, and weeds
all bless my place as it all comes home to me again.
The wobbling world turns on, as do I, tottering more and more
into each year’s renewal, and its time of dying, folded into each other,
both clasping the other with the tidings of old and new seasons.
It is as it has been and will be long after I’ve seen these seasons blend one last time.
Lanning Lee 