Seasons Wonders

 

I waited and watched for the barren trees of winter to finally put forth the first green buds of spring. As the weather got warmer, I kept my vigil and waited to witness the miracle of those tiny emerald jewels transformed into new leaves, providing soft green coverage for the earth.

One day, in a moment in which I must have blinked, those tiny beauties burst forth in all the magnificence of the spring season. Somehow I’d missed this miracle, as if I’d been in some deep slumber or blinked too slowly and the world had set into motion something that was faster than I could capture. It seemed that overnight, the trees were transformed from leafless gray creatures, reaching their cold limbs toward the warmth of the sun, to majestic beings of fresh green color, moving in the breeze like marvelous giants dancing in the wind.

I promised myself that I would not miss the next grand change, the one from summer to autumn. Whatever had transpired in the course of Mother Nature’s timetable that had prevented me from seeing the transformation of spring’s change would not happen again in the fall. I would watch more carefully. I would trick the forces of nature and time so that I would not miss the next miracle of the seasons.

I knew I had been there, I thought I had been aware. But Mother Nature had tricked me once again. I had seen her visiting with Jack Frost one day, which should have been my clue that another great and marvelous event was about to take place. I must have turned away for a moment, and in doing so, Jack crept in and painted all the trees in autumn’s beautiful colors.

I sat and watched from my window as, one after another, the leaves drifted from their perches amongst the branches and slowly floated to the ground in their bold, beautiful oranges and yellows. Like vibrant jewels they gathered on the ground, blowing about our feet in the wind.

Once again, I promised myself not to miss the miracle of the next changing season. The days became shorter and colder as the nights wore on endlessly.  Everything seemed so still and lifeless as the branches were transformed yet again to great, gray barren arms reaching toward the sky, empty and sorrowful, like a mother who has just lost her child. They swayed in the wind, creaking and moaning wistfully for something to fill them once more.

I awakened one cold morning, in the early days of winter, to a beautiful white softness covering the landscape. The trees were wrapped in a fluffy blanket of snow, as if nature has reached out and provided comfort for those sorrowful, barren arms. The air was fresh and filled with a crispness that tingled my nose. In the stillness of the day, the snow glistened like diamonds in the sunlight.

In life’s great commotion, I had missed the transformation of yet another season. Year after year, they come and go, and it seems I have missed them all. In the stillness of a single moment, great changes take place that I will never have the opportunity to witness again. As I grow older, it becomes clearer to me that I must slow down, catch more of what this life has to offer, and witness the transformations of time and space, of life and death and rebirth.

 

 

 

~ by msbee1 on October 8, 2009.