The start of Autumn

Karl Duffy

Here in the Irish and Celtic calendar, the season of Autumn began on Monday, the 1st of September. Although the weather is still very mild, the mornings are misty and some leaves have already started to fall. We are moving into a period which helps us reflect on impermanence and on the fact that all things change. Our meditation practice reminds us that there is only suffering to be had when we try to fix things solid, or hold onto them, like the long days of summer or the memories of times past. We instinctively prefer permanence and how it tells a story of a solid, single identity. Instead, in reality,  like the seasons, we are always changing; things come and go in our lives.  Nature lets go and moves on. Maybe we can learn from that.

If I can let you go as trees let go
Their leaves, so casually, one by one;
If I can come to know what they do know,
That fall is the release, the consummation,
Then fear of time and the uncertain fruit
Would not distemper the great lucid skies
This strangest autumn, mellow and acute.
If I can take the dark with open eyes
And call it seasonal, not harsh or strange
(For love itself may need a time of sleep),
And, treelike, stand unmoved before the change,
Lose what I lose to keep what I can keep,
The strong root still alive under the snow,
Love will endure – if I can let you go.

May Sarton, Autumn Sonnets

photo of the Barrow river at Bagenalstown, Co. Carlow.

7 thoughts on “The start of Autumn”

  1. This post has coincided with a poem I have just written Karl. I thought you mught lime to read it

    Change
    03
    SEP
    2014
    44 Comments
    by journeyintopoetry in Poetry Tags: attachment, change, clinging on, letting go, nature, personal war, resistance to change, victim Edit

    I sense a closing in the air,

    a tying up of loose ends

    in readiness to say farewell,

    to let go,

    and I feel sad.

    Summer is now just a smile

    that returns to my face

    on grey dreary mornings.

    Maybe one day I will

    accept change without

    judgement or fuss,

    without attachment

    as nature does,

    without a need to cling on.

    Or maybe I will just

    keep spinning the

    wheel of suffering and

    remain a victim

    in my own futile war.

    😊

    Reply

    1. Hi Chris, the poem is lovely, and nature in autumn gives a model of letting go and allowing/not fighting which we find less easy to do. Hope you are well this bright Sunday morning

      Reply

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