Green shoots smiling with naive expectation -

Tall meadow grasses bending their heads together,

sharing the warmth of a summer love -

Paling leaves, flung suddenly

like a flock of bright birds into the sky -

Dead branches and still earth -

a hermit's retreat

where -

in rest is found strength,

in silence, inspiration,

in dying to self, new life in a greater Self.

See:

Time, like a whirlpool,

spinning, ever spinning

draws all things to a still focus.

Life fades ere it has hardly bloomed.

Leaves fall,

and in outward barrenness comes sleep.

And though winter turns ever to spring again,

the trend is toward silence:

snow, not summer, is the final victor.

Everything falls off:

Loved ones fade into the mist of memory;

morning laughter echoes dully

down the dim glades of twilight.

Autumn, not springtime, is the unending trend,

when leaves fall,

and human interest wanes,

and the soul,

having danced awhile, cries,

"Enough!

I grew green shoots,

and tall grasses,

and felt the warmth of summer love,

and ever these were lost,

and ever I labored to grow again,

and ever I struggled, and clung,

and despaired at the twilight hours,

and at the fall of leaves.

"But now I know that

in freedom from dependency

lies strength,

and in the death of desire.

For in eternal silence only

sings the robin of true joy."