I've posted this prayer in other years, too, but it's one of my favorites and I've done some more work on it - so here it is again...
When fall comes 'round each year, Lord,
I wonder if, by night,
you climb down from the heavens,
perhaps on some great ladder,
to paint the leaves, just one by one,
in all their autumn glory...
I wonder and I muse, Lord,
on how it is you might decide
the trees that you'll choose first
as worthy your brush...
Why the ash and not the maple?
Why those towering elms
but not the oak
close by, just down the street?
And oh, the colors, Lord:
I love orange, red and yellow!
But it seems perhaps you favor
the purple, rust and brown...
It seems you move from tree to tree,
painting branches, here and there
- with swaths of green left in between -
until you next return and then
with blessings from your palette,
complete what you'd begun...
Do we see with different eyes, Lord,
a beauty I'm yet blind to?
Is your splendor in the branches
or in the changing, turning hues
of all that lives and breathes?
The wonder in my reverie
probes wisdom, grace and memory
but you alone, the artist, Lord,
know autumn's sacred mystery...
And sooner than I want, Lord,
these leaves in all their beauty
will lose their grip on branch and limb
and spill, swirl and fall,
in November's chilly gusts
to my backyard
for the coming winter's snow...
Draw my eye, my heart and soul
to see the beauty you reveal
when night by chilly night
you climb down from the heavens
and paint the leaves,
just one by one,
in autumn's passing glory...
Amen.
All photos by CP in Concord, MA
