A Distant Spring

The culling of my heart draws near with autumn, and the pain arrives gently with the first signs of death.

These broad and storied leaves, these dutiful flowers, have spent their worth in service of another summer. Now is a time to thank them. They will soon be gone.

Farewell to the summer of my life, and the sun whose warmth I will miss for a long, long time. The chill of frosted nothings awaits me, and the loneliness of the vigil.

I have rended to naught with my own hands, I have killed, I have harvested. Here, my sins pale in comparison to the turning of the sun and the death brought by the withholding of his love.

Will anything rise from the snows next year? Will there be hope someday? I take it on faith that the earth spins. I trust from my memories that flowers rise again.

How beautifully, too, will my visage be dressed like the fields in the spring to come. I need only cover my ears through the sounds of the fall.

I need only sing through the calm of the winter.

I need only trust in the circle of life, that I will rise again from the coming snow.