What the Season Teaches

Change moves through like wind in a forest, touching what it passes, felt before it is understood.

Branches bend, old bark loosens, and what once felt certain begins to waver.

The full moon lifts over bare crowns, silvering what has been stripped away.

In her light, the forest stands both empty and alive. Roots hold fast while limbs reach for what is next.

Nothing resists the turning. Even what breaks becomes part of the soil that will feed new growth.

There is wisdom in trees that do not hurry their becoming.

They let go when it is time.

They rest in the quiet work of roots.

They trust the sun will return.

Some seasons unmake us so completely that we forget we are still growing.

But the forest remembers.

Every fall of leaf, every pulse beneath the ground, they are a promise. Change is not the end, only the movement toward becoming whole.

Photograph: Watchers at the edge, Lebanon, NH