Lent

A guest blog … a poem for the season, by the Rev. Jean Shannon, Uniting Church Minister serving on the Sapphire Coast in southern NSW.

The sun warms my knees
while puffs of cool air 
tell me winter is
waiting in the wings. 
Holding her breath: 
a sharp intake of awe 
to the turning leaves – foreign but loving…
and the eucalypt speak suddenly silver or 
more blue than green.

The trees whisper softly of what will come. 
There is a smell that is cleanly autumn: 
of soil and nutmeg and some grounded spice. 
The air moves differently and tells a story – 
that leaves will fall and icy wind invade. 
Earth’s almanac predicting death and resurrection. 

How much life must die, 
turn cold
and pull the earth over them like linen.
Who will love them deep in their graves
and who will wait for emergence…so very far away? 
The earth cries for our patience. 
God’s time is so different from mine. 

But how I love the autumn with its golden light
slanted across long afternoons,
scented in the air,
expectant of the night. 
These days betray nature’s secret
a ritual of discovery and revival.  

Would I change a thing?

Jean Shannon, Lent 2021