Wednesday, November 7th

As we made our daily trip to Penticton today, up through the valley bottom where the trees are still brilliant with autumn shades, we climbed to higher altitudes where a strong wind has thinned the leaves on the deciduous tree and in some cases scattered all the ground beneath them with gold.

At the highest point of the pass the beautiful bones of the alder and aspen are filagree lace, silhouetted against the darkness of the evergreen hills.

I was reminded of Mary Oliver and her beautiful "Lines Written in the Days of Growing Darkness".

Every year we have been

witness to it: how the

world descends

 

into a rich mash, in order that

it may resume.

And therefore

who would cry out

 

to the petals on the ground

to stay

knowing as we must,

how the vivacity of what was is married

 

to the vitality of what will be?

I don't say it's easy, but

what else will do

 

if the love one claims to have for the world

be true?

So let us go on, cheerfully enough,

this and every crisping day.

 

though the sun be swinging east,

and the ponds be cold and black,

and the sweets of the year be doomed.

And I thought about how these words are so relevant to the November of our lifetime