INFORM-A^CTION

Issue Number 45 - August 2002

 

Maple Leaves Falling

It's autumn yet, but to my thoughtful eye
the maple shows her winter nakedness.
The leafy remnant trembles in the wind,
still clinging to the mother who has birthed
and nourished them throughout the warmer days.
But now, with golden or blood-red hearts
they wait to take the sacrificial leap into another place.

To careless passers-by, the leaf blocked drains
and sodden gold and russet carpet means
a simple inconvenience, though some
collect the fallen leaves to press within
the pages of a book as pledge of spring
against the winter time.

The autumn leaves must fall - their time has come
to bid adieu to all that they have been.
Unless they go, new life, still hidden deep
within the tree's imagination
will not have room enough to bud and grow.
Somehow, unconscious altruists, the leaves
in dying hold within themselves the stuff
of life to come. They know not how or where
but Nature knows, and year by year she works
her subtle alchemy.

In thankfulness I gaze, and gazing ask
that I may learn a lesson from the leaves -
to cherish life and beauty while they last
and then, in time, with heart grown gold and red,
to give myself in love without regrets
unto my greater Self.

Bob Fredericks, Oakland USA, Autumn 1999

Bob Fredericks died on 16 July 2002. He was a Christian Brother and worked at Justice Place for a number of years in the late 1990s. Bob was a private man and it was only in the last years of his life that I came to value him and his immense gifts. Bob died "fully alive" and he showed in his dying the essence of his inner being. Bob showed me how to die well. This poem is printed here with permission from the Christian Brothers (Queensland) as a tribute to Bob's life and his contribution to the global struggle for justice, peace, inclusiveness and the integrity of all creation. Coralie Kingston

Next Newsletter Article

Newsletter Index