By Gala
Date: 2 September 2000
Heart Ache In Season
Autumn breaks most people's hearts---
but not mine, never mine
not until today
when I watched the tree
I've quietly loved
change color to make ready for the winter.
It's stunning still---brilliant, vivid---
but losing it's leaves
as part of it's cycle---
the part I always gloried in every Fall
suddenly strikes me as painful
and it matters not one bit
that after the cold
those same branches will bear new life
because first it must lose
the life it has known.
You can call it the order of things,
call me foolish for tears
because after all---there will always be leaves;
but I never wondered before
how much a tree must ache
to earn it's change of season.
And now I know,
with blinding clarity
that this is the price
for new life,
and new love,
and I am weeping
for the oak, the hickory,
and my beloved laurel
who pay the freight
for my change of season.
And I can water them with tears,
watch over them when the snows come,
brush awat the ice after the storm
when they are encased---
and pray they weather the season
only because the biting cold
will set them to bud in the spring
when I will be waiting
for their lives to begin again.
Oh-----and before you laugh
at this heartache
heartbreak change of season---
my much loved tree is a tulipwood
and it's leaves
are golden hearts
that glow like sunlight
just before they fall.
Back to the Heart-on-Sleeve Corner