SPRINGTIME AND HARVEST

Brothers+

I happened upon the poem “Incantation” printed below.

It reminded me of a time when in my twenties, in the
fall of the year I saw with clarity the Word of God in
nature.  From the time I was a child, the fall winds
excited me as I rode a bicycle or walked on country
roads, or ran through woodlands. Then one day, walking
with my wife on an autumn day, admiring the gaudy
leaves, I saw seedpods bursting, strewing the ground
with seeds.  I saw clearly that autumn and winter is
not the death of nature; quite the contrary, it is a
seminal time; the planting time, the resting time; the
time of hidden growth beneath the warm blankets of
winter snow that makes possible the resurrection of
spring and summer’s harvest.

I excitedly said, “Nature is not dying, it is now most
alive.  This is seedtime.”

We think of April, May and June as spring – and
sometimes we mistakenly think of it as seedtime.  Yes,
it is so, for some gardeners. But for nature, autumn
is seedtime.  Winter is the time of rest and hidden
growth. Spring is the time of growth when life flowers
and made gloriously manifest; and summer the time of
maturity and harvest.

Charles+
Church of the Good Shepherd, Indianapolis

:---------------------------------------------
INCANTATION for AUTUMN


  When the leaves, by thousands thinned,
A thousand times have whirled in the wind,
And the moon, with hollow cheek,
Staring from her hollow height,
Consolation seems to seek
From the dim, reechoing night;
And the fog-streaks dead and white
Lie like ghosts of lost delight
O'er highest earth and lowest sky;
Then, Autumn, work thy witchery!

  Strew the ground with poppy-seeds,
And let my bed be hung with weeds,
Growing gaunt and rank and tall,
Drooping o'er me like a pall.
Send thy stealthy, white-eyed mist
Across my brow to turn and twist
Fold on fold, and leave me blind
To all save visions in the mind.

Then, in the depth of rain-fed streams
I shall slumber, and in dreams
Slide through some long glen that burns
With a crust of blood-red ferns
And brown-withered wings of brake
Like a burning lava-lake;--

So, urged to fearful, faster flow
By the awful gasp, "Hahk! hahk!" of the crow,
Shall pass by many a haunted rood
Of the nutty, odorous wood;
Or, where the hemlocks lean and loom,
Shall fill my heart with bitter gloom;
Till, lured by light, reflected cloud,
I burst aloft my watery shroud,
And upward through the ether sail
Far above the shrill wind's wail;--
But, falling thence, my soul involve
With the dust dead flowers dissolve;
And, gliding out at last to sea,
Lulled to a long tranquillity,
The perfect poise of seasons keep
With the tides that rest at neap.

So must be fulfilled the rite
That giveth me the dead year's might;
And at dawn I shall arise
A spirit, though with human eyes,
A human form and human face;
And where'er I go or stay,
There the summer's perished grace
Shall be with me, night and day.