The way the trees empty themselves of leaves,
let drop their ponderous fruit,
the way the turtle abandons the sun-warmed log,
the way even the late-blooming aster
succumbs to the power of frost—
this is not a new story.
Still, on this morning, the hollowness
of the season startles, filling
the rooms of your house, filling the world
with impossible light, improbable hope.
And so, what else can you do
but let yourself be broken
and emptied? What else is there
but waiting in the autumn sun?
— Carolyn Locke from The Place We Become
I want you to
Slow down
I just want it all
To slow down;
I want to make a forest
Of a moment
And live in that forest
For ever
Before you go.
— Matt Haig from How to Stop Time
When despair for the world grows in me
and I wake in the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.
I come into the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought
of grief. I come into the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars
waiting with their light. For a time
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.
— Wendell Berry from Selected Poems
You expected to be sad in the fall. Part of you died each year when the leaves fell from the trees and their branches were bare against the wind and the cold, wintry light. But you knew there would always be the spring, as you knew the river would flow again after it was frozen.
— Ernest Hemingway from A Moveable Feast
See Also:
My Soul In Silence Waits 