The trees are weeping
Great arid tears
Of scarlet, gold, and flame—
Mourning winter’s onset
And doubting spring will come again.
Autumns sings in a minor key, bagpipes droning the slave trader's hymn. Loss, surrender, relinquishment thrum beneath the glory of the turning leaves, the crisp cool air, the gentler light.
Even as tree limbs release their grip on summer's glory and exhalations of wind carry it down, down, down to the earth, farmers gather in their harvests, the golden glory-fruit of so many seeds of hope buried in soil nourished by the weeping of the trees.
"I assure you: Unless a grain of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains by itself. But if it dies, it produces a large crop" (John 12:24, HCSB).
