Tuesday, October 24, 2023

"Trees don't die, they just pretend ..."


A little poetry this morning --- from Robert Schwartz --- paired with an image I shot last night along the bluff at the south edge of the museum campus. A little solace as one season moves toward another during unusually troublesome times.

Every October it becomes important, no, necessary
to see the leaves turning, to be surrounded
by leaves turning; it's not just the symbolism,
to confront in the death of the year your death,
one blazing farewell appearance, though the irony
isn't lost on you that nature is most seductive
when it's about to die, flaunting the dazzle of its
incipient exit, an ending that at least so far
the effects of human progress (pollution, acid rain)
have not yet frightened you enough to make you believe
is real; that is, you know this ending is a deception
because of course nature is always renewing itself—
    the trees don't die, they just pretend, 
    go out in style, and return in style: a new style.

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