Ode to a Dying Earth

Today the mountain wears a golden burial shroud, welcoming winter’s death as a crown.

Autumn pine peer solemn and silent at the dying earth through her cathedral windows of deepest amber and caramel, framed by slender branches.

Aspen quake and shiver, death staining their leaves with brilliant orange,

And the meadows stand still and breathless,

Waiting for the mountain that once quivered with life to die

So that she can live again.

And I, I sit at her base and sup on bread and wine,

This once living food now dead, coursing through my dying body so that I might live.

This, a reminder of the only Living Food; the grain and the vine, the Bread and the Wine;

The One who died and then lived.

And in this communion with death surrounded by the dying I know it’s true what they say,

Beauty is the Resplendence of Truth;

For the colors ring and the silence sings of death that gives life,

Of the Living One,

Who makes all things new.