Autumn – The Beauty Never Gets Old

Today, I went cycling and the colours were so beautiful. We all have watched colours change in Autumn year after year. It never gets old – every year we are memorized by a beautiful, crisp Fall day and the vibrant colours it brings. It is a paradox – as the leaves die and fall to the ground, there is such beauty. Autumn is as life is – we can be both devastated (by the end of summer) and at the same time stunned with joy and beauty (the amazing colours). This poem by Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer really reminds me of opposition that Autumn brings.

FOR WHEN PEOPLE ASK
I want a word that means okay and not okay,
more than that: a word that means devastated and stunned with joy.
I want a word that says I feel it all all at once.
The heart is not like a songbird singing only one note at a time,
more like a Tuvan throat singer able to sing both a drone and simultaneously two or three harmonics high above it – a sound, the Tuvans say, that gives the impression of wind swirling among rocks.
The heart understands swirl, how the churning of opposite feelings that weaves through us like an insistent breeze leads us wordlessly deeper into ourselves,
blesses us with paradox so we might walk more openly into this world so rife with devastation,
this world so ripe with joy.