BY JOE BISICCHIA
And the Fallen Leaves
All your colorful carnivals still swirl as time packs away its current tent.
Bones seem to want to sleep again. And your dreams seem to go dark,
but not.
Majestic tree, see, you leave room for the past springs, all the winters,
all that is at your feet while all the sky opens its light to all your being.
And upward you reach, outward you step, bare with honesty.
You let go of us and so much leaves along with your seeds.
Perhaps all your creativity is somewhere still here in your belief.
Centered like summer, your rings circle forever. There is no end.
The world around you begins again. And we open our hearts to breathe.
Rose Colored Leaves
It is pulled upward by the promise of forever,
and it spreads this meaning all across heaven and earth.
I set to plant such a tree and so I stab the ground with a spade,
and fill the air with a scream from the rabbit nest unseen.
The sacrifice narrows my ears. How harsh life can be.
We go forth holding each other, whether we know it or not.
We pull our worded art, all our trees, all the strands of hay
from the fields, all the weeds, and we must still settle to breathe.
We go forth choosing what to know of ourselves and all that is
pulled from heaven and earth. And to appreciate what may be
somehow still miraculously alive of a seed, even as all seems
destined to pass away, we are here, by grace, our very selves.
What forever shall remain? How beautiful Love’s promise
forever can be. And so again, by mercy with faith and hope,
with best awareness of where I am, I set to plant such a tree.
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The Green Shoe Sanctuary 