Clear sky at dawn
with a waxing moon,
the stark branches
of winter emptying,
letting go of the green
for descent
into the holy dark.

Releasing faith
and its tribunals
for blessed peace,
as seeds soften
in the wet ground,
awaiting the fire
of our surrender.

 

 

 

13 Responses

  1. Thanks Don… this certainly fits the season and is a metaphor for those humans who are surrendering to the peaceful dark, and we all know who they are.

  2. Thank you, Don. When my head doesn’t clear when disturbed in the night, my feet know the Buddha Way, for they walk me to my surrender…

  3. Can we think of the changeless world of the present moment? What else is there really. There is the old world with its timelessness with no blame and no regrets, understanding that the Holy Spirit is contributing all that is necessary in the NOW-HERE!

  4. I somehow like the line “releasing faith and all its tribunals”. How do we humans put ourselves on trial for what we perceive as less than. Time to rest for the winter and chew the fat with the “fertile dark” as David calls it. Once chewed on for the winter it may be more palatable, or even forgotten.

  5. …as seeds soften
    in the wet ground
    awaiting the fire
    of our surrender.

    We humans cannot create seeds. We can provide conditions for their germination, and both water and warmth are essential for seeds’ patience to be rewarded and destiny fulfilled. I feel your phrase, “the fire of our surrender” points precisely to how love comes in. Beautiful.

  6. I loved the end of season imagery because through it you earned with a very natural rhetorical gesture the right to say, “Releasing faith/and all its tribunals,” big words and a big concept that drift to the ground along with the rest of the biomass that gets dropped in the winter. Imagery is the ONLY carrier of polemic message in poetry, a difficult lesson to learn for most poets who want to bonk the reader on the head with The Big Moral, and you have done it here with a deft hand.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *