How do we catch a day of brilliant sunshine
And hold it close, preserved for later days.
How do we catch a gentle glowing moombeam
To wrap around a special time, to say
This is an hour we will spend in quiet
Waiting for stars to peak out through the sky.
How do you hold a yellow turning maple
When leaves release and cast themselves afar.
Across the highway corn stalks wait the combine,
While beans with crispness hold their drying leaves,
And harvest seems serene in contemplation
With every sign of autumn now in rhyme.
How do you hold a whippoorwill at evening,
Drinking his song in reverie sublime?
When do you think that you can slow the day time,
Or keep the cooling evening on a line?
How will you keep the orchard showing apples,
Yellows and reds, full ripe at picking time.
With lowing herds now wending to the barnyard,
How can you listen, feel the twilight’s song?
How do you hear a dog bark when it’s evening
If all is quiet, waiting for the night?
Where is a message pointing to tomorrow?
Now is the time to listen to today!
There is a reverence stirring deep within us,
Calling the self to enter now this hour,
Catching a fragile glimpse of nature’s beauty,
Swelling this moment, blooming like a flower.
Hear now a toneless buzzing in the garden,
Hold still, to let a honey bee pass by,
Listen to locust’s lovely night time opus,
Awed by the charm of evening’s sweet embrace.
The roses fade and look to winter resting.
The woods grows quiet, refuge for the squirels.
A tranquil path invites the eyes to stroll there.
A falling leaf now enters winter’s sleep.
Through trees a cool and gentile breeze is sounding,
Providing peace like organ harmonies,
While fog from nearby rocky rippling brooklet
Spreads fluffy mist o’er forest carpet growth.
Soon change will come when winter storms are blowing,
Then all the land reflects a whitened scene.
The leafless trees stand stark, now bare and lonely,
With rabbits buried deep and snug in snow.
The icy wind, the brilliant sun, the blue skies
Announce that autumn now has swiftly past,
While nature sleeps, and waits the coming springtime,
The fireplace sheds its crackling warmth, its light.
We don our winter garb and race to play time.
Enjoying all that winter’s change holds dear.
(revised April 2000, original October 1999)