I Attempt to Capture Autumn in a Poem

Words as pictures and other mysteries + a free holiday reading list (early)

Recent treescapes around my Seattleland home.

We Deserve Nothing Yet Receive Everything

Winter weather awaits. Wrapped in family

blankets deckside, light breezes caress my

face here in my solitary chair while busy

nuthatches leave their seeds to zoom and dart.

Gulls squawk the morning awake.

Gold and peridot tip the season’s last

leaves, above them an opening through

impatient, scuttling clouds.

Pungent tea warms while my eyes are

fixed on waning, silvered sun against the

trees, all gift.

All God.¹

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My sister was visiting from California recently, traveling through Seattle on her way to connect with friends for an excursion to the East Coast. They were going to “see the colors” in New England on a bus tour, visiting the cluster of states in the upper right hand corner of the U.S.

Those states are all in nearly the same latitude—47— as my Seattleland backyard. And I wondered to myself about flying across the country to see the similar colors that adorn the roadways, parks and yards right here in the upper left hand corner of the Pacific Northwest.

She texted photos after their trip of the remarkable colors against perfect blue skies. Postcard-worthy, I’ll grant you, and while they reflected the amber, bronze, garnet and gold adorning the glorious trees, a glance to my own backyard revealed a nearly identical show.

Neither photos nor words can capture what we see with the naked eye, especially in the Fall. My sister and I were born and raised in Southern California, where she still lives, and the changing seasons are nearly impossible to detect. Weathermen have a tough go at it; how many ways can you say, “Today’s sunshine will be followed by more blue skies and sunshine”?

Given my years of So Cal weather experience, I am in continuous amazement at the colors each Autumn in shrub and tree and garden. My attempts to pencil my thoughts on the page and capture the stunning show never end.

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In Case You Missed It

Last week I offered you my favorite reading selections for the upcoming Christmas season. I realize it may appear a tad early to mention the holidays at this juncture when we haven’t even observed All Hallow’s Eve yet. However, I wanted to offer readers a proactive way to set their intentions surrounding a time of year that can assault us on every front.

If Costco and Home Depot and Every Grocery Store Under the Sun are going to “fling bling and tinsel at us right through December” then it behooves us to proactively anchor ourselves in a good book or two that helps “redress the imbalance,” as Malcolm Guite has so perfectly expressed:

“One virtue of keeping the seasons of the sacral year is that they can help us to redress an imbalance, either in our own spiritual life or in the culture of our church or denomination. “…redressing an imbalance…(can) help us restore that quietness, that inner peace, that willingness to wait unfulfilled in the dark, in the midst of a season that conspires to nothing but fling bling and tinsel at us right through December.”

Waiting on the Word: A Poem a Day from Advent to Epiphany, Malcolm Guite

If you missed that post (hey, new Subscribers!) or didn’t have a chance, here’s a button for your Free Download of the list (pictured above).

Also….

I will be releasing my own small twelve-poem volume next week on All Hallow’s Eve. Emmanuel Poems: Verses for the Holidays will be available as an ebook via Kindle for $4.99 and as a printable download on my author website for $5.99. Stay tuned for that!

As always, I so appreciate everyone in the Poetry & Made Things community—it is a gift to be connected here, albeit virtually. Your presence is a boon to my soul. I pray you find a moment or two of glorious Autumn splendor wherever you are and come back to share with us in the Comments to tell us what you saw.

Also, please consider subscribing and if you find my work of value today and can drop a tip in the Tip Jar, you’ll have my humble thanks.

Until next time~

Jody

1. Readers who follow me on Notes may recognize this poem from last week’s Notes feed.