Fall

Nature saves her boldest colors for fall—
Leaves of copper, terracotta, crimson,
Sunsets that flare up in brazen reds of dying stars—
As though to applaud this subtle threshold
When life pulls inward,
Releases what has come before.
A time when darkness grows.

In my yard the Chinese elm
Unfastens her green summer gown,
Without a sliver of regret.
Her coppery leaves tumble and float to the earth,
Without a whisper of resistance.
How proudly she exposes her skeleton of silvery limbs,
Without a trace of shame.

In autumn a layer of illusion peels back,
And stillness peeks through,
In crisp clear air, piles of crinkled leaves
And bare branches.
Spring and summer overflow
With sweet scents and ripe fruits,
But in fall we are called upon
To participate in this emptying of the world.

—Alexandra Kennedy, from Offerings at the Edge

 Wild Gift of Old Age: For My Mother

You never would have guessed
The wild gift of old age that came to bless you—
Alchemical gold harvested from frailty and solitude.

As fading memory nudged you
Into the sacred presence of each moment
And age slowed your restless body,
You found yourself bursting
With the beauty of the life around you.

Everything was sparkling and new—
The lagoon glistened with sequins of light,
White terns swooping on the wind,
While armfuls of purple-veined orchids vied for your attention
Just beneath your window.

It was all you could talk about.
It was as though your eyes could never take it all in,
As though you basked in the threshold between the worlds,
Where the eternal breathes through earthly forms.
You lived on the sweetness of gratitude.

In your last years you learned to love the world.
Having lost all that you thought would make you happy,
You found peace in unexpected places—
Perhaps your death too is wrapped in wonder.

—Alexandra Kennedy

 My heart is a hidden garden

My heart is a hidden garden,
Shining with a light beyond itself,
Where gleeful bougainvillea flutter at a butterfly’s touch,
And marigolds sigh with orange tenderness.
Here each green shoot grows a mystery,
And everything can be as it is—
All the sorrows of this earth, all the joys.
Here I can dance and cry all things—
An eternal meeting of spacious sky and sensuous earth
In the beating of my heart.

My body is a blue-green ocean
Of rolling waves and deep wells.
Currents of feelings sweep through me
And splash boldly onto the shore.
Pulses of energy come and go like tides,
Flowing from an unknown Source.
I am fluid being, a wet world with no boundaries.

Sometimes I brace against the flow of life.
Caught in the little me,
Lost in a blue spell of mind,
I argue with the way things are
And try to correct the world.
Then a wall crowds the garden of my heart.
In these moments I am Eve cast out from Eden,
Swept into a heavy gray fog,
There is no sparkle here.

Then as grief wells up grace appears,
Rising from belly to breath to eyes.
It’s too painful to live this way,
To be separate,
To live in the mind, and not in the heart.

I take a deep breath;
A vital force quickens.
My body shivers loose.
And a river of love flows
In cascades of humming cells.

The thirsty garden throws open her golden green heart,
As losses weave into wise blossoms
That exhale the sweet fragrance of gratitude.

—Alexandra Kennedy, from Offerings at the Edge

 For Lost Friends

As twilight makes a rainbow robe
From the concealed colors of the day
In order for time to stay alive
Within the dark weight of night,
May we lose no one we love
From the shelter of our hearts.

When we love another heart
And allow it to love us,
We journey deep below time
Into that eternal weave
Where nothing unravels.

May we have the grace to see
Despite the hurt of rupture,
The searing anger,
And the empty disappointment,
That whoever we have loved,
Such love can never quench.

Though a door may be closed,
Closed between us,
May we be able to view
Our lost friends with eyes
Wise with calming grace;
Forgive them the damage
We were left to inherit;
Free ourselves from the chains
Of forlorn resentment;
Bring the warmth again to
Where the heart has frozen
In order that beyond the walls
Of our cherished hurt
And chosen distance
We may be able to
Celebrate the gifts they brought,
Learn and grow from the pain,
And prosper into difference,
Wishing them peace
Where spirit can summon
Beauty from wounded space.

—John O’Donohue