Pause for Prayer: SATURDAY 10/7

When fall comes 'round each year, Lord,

I wonder if, by night,

you climb down from the heavens,

perhaps on Jacob's ladder,

to paint the leaves, one by one, 

in all their autumn glory...

I wonder and I muse

on how it is you might decide

the trees that you choose first and deem

deserving of your brush...

 

Why the ash - and not the maple?

Why those elms but not the mighty oak,

so close, just down the street?

 

It seems you move from tree to tree, 

painting branches here and there

with swaths of green left in between

until you come another night

with blessings from your palette

to complete what you've begun...

 

And oh, the colors, Lord!

I love the orange, yellow, red

but might it be you favor

the purple, rust and brown?

 

Do we see with different eyes?

Is there beauty I'm yet blind to?

Is the glory in the branches

or the changing, turning,  falling

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,

the leaves in all their beauty 

will lose their grip on branch and limb

and fall, spill and swirl in

November's chilly gusts

to carpet my backyard 

for the coming winter's snow...

 

Draw my eye, my heart and soul

to the beauty you reveal, Lord,

when night by night and day by day

you climb down from the heavens,

perhaps on Jacob's ladder,

to paint the leaves, one by one,

in all their autumn glory...

 

Amen.  

 

All photos by CP in Concord, MA

 

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