Bowing for Beauty
Oct 31, 2005
something scribbled same time last year after a long countrywalk in the midst of fallsplendour in Michigan...Fall is my favorite season
When the woods turns into
A monastery and each tree
A monk in a deep robe
Of crimson, saffron, earthbrown
Or vermillion- never has self-sacrifice
Looked this good- this glamourous.
(I don't quite mean that the way it sounds)
A little in love I walk into
The woods- barefoot
Because there is nothing
In this world that can
Bring me to my knees
As swiftly as the monastic beauty
Of autumn trees
The sun slants across their splendour
And my heart catches on a bramble
A floating leaf lands softly on my head
(How can something so beautiful
Be dead?)
Teach me I say softly
To the blaze-
Teach me to turn like you
Burn like you
Teach me the secrets
That you know
Teach me the secret
Of letting go--
A caterpillar crawls across my path
Butterflies chase each other
Even the mundane can be magical
Everything seems suddenly
Significant-
Even me.
I lie down in the grass and wonder
How I can do nothing and
Feel so full of purpose
So full of meaning
When I get up I see the pollen on my skirt
The burrs sticking to my shirt
As I walk I dust myself off
Clutching a straw hat in one hand
Racing the sun I'm halfway home
Before I understand--
I bowed for beauty in
An autumn woods and then
I walked away
But something will bloom
Where my barefeet fell
Because I was here today.
