There are gaps in the tree-line where six tall trees once blocked the sky. The storms of spring knocked them down.
I’ll watch this summer as the younger trees below grow to fill the gaps left by their fallen elders. They’ve managed a few feet up and outward.
By next year trees and sky will seem as before.
Some celebrate this as the circle-of-life. That’s little comfort to the fallen trees. I value new life. I mourn life passed.
I wish the circle-cycle replaced by permanence. I wish in vain.
I wish anyway.
Summer’s fading away. Green leaves are turning to yellow. Some have fallen. A month from now the remaining leaves will be ablaze with color. A month after that they’ll be spread lifeless & brown like a mortuary quilt on the lawn.
My poet wife, Joyce, captured the cycle in her haiku-like poem of five words:
Green, Yellow, Red, Brown, Dead.
It’s a grim poem, realistic, inarguably true. Those who think of nature as a beautiful circle-of life may find Joyce’s poem uncomfortable. I’m uncomfortable with the deceitful happy-talk of ideas like the circle-of-life which celebrates death as a charming dance duet in the great ongoing performance of: life-death-life.
Inevitability is not the same as good.
Yes, circle-of-life is the abysmal reality of life in this fallen world. That’s no reason to elevate death to respectability. Death should never be celebrated.
It seems to me, we should celebrate life
and curse death.
Evil deserves no respect. If we can’t overcome evil we should at least call it by its name. When we do otherwise we confuse understanding.
The pattern does not vary: Birth; Growth; Fullness; Decay; Dissolution. All true, all lamentable - except for the first three: Birth; Growth; and Fullness. Nothing is gained by pretending that Decay and Dissolution play an honorable role - in anything.
Dust dissolves into dust, only to be reshaped as
a new animation of dust. That’s what passes for life in this world. It’s an imitation of life. Real life is immortal. It comes from Heaven.
It returns to Heaven.
Ah well! All I can do is watch, appreciate the good, and deplore the evil.
Life’s resilience is the good part. Even under sentence of death, hope, like new green leaves sprouts eternal. Death is resisted, even though inevitable.
Courage is always admirable.
Courage is a human construct, it’s not quite the right word, though it seems almost the right word to describe the resiience manifested when an animal fights with everything it has against becoming prey; when a tall tree stands firm storm after storm before falling; when young trees do their best to fill the void left by their elders - despite the futility of lasting success.
Summer ends. Fall begins. Winter looms ahead.
The big blow comes to us all.