The cycle starts here
We look at fresh starts and the cycle of life in issue 168 of your weekly poetry booster
Fresh fallen
leaves, helped by mushrooms, start
their decaying as autumn takes hold;
in their midst, seeds start to
germinate.
Autumn is known as the beginning of the end. In our linear way of looking at life, autumn is the season when we start to lose our leaves, and our days are getting shorter. Sure, there are beautiful colours shining bright on the ever fewer days the sun comes out to play, but we all know we are preparing for the Big Sleep.
It never really felt right. As I mentioned before, I love every season for its particularities and promises. A few days ago, I was in a park with the dog and the kids. The park is lush, with many trees. Earlier, we found beech nuts there. This time, there were chestnuts. We tried, successfully, to pry the edible kernels from the soft-spiked shells. One of these spikes managed to pierce my skin. But, that was totally worth it. Looking at our haul, and thinking of the beechnuts we had found earlier, I realised something that has been staring me in the face for a long time: autumn is not the beginning of the end, it’s the beginning of the beginning. The harvest season. When trees and other crops shed their seeds. Seeds that will find fertile ground, nestle, take root; so they can start sprouting in spring. It’s all a circle.
We roasted the chestnuts. They tasted good.
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Poetics in life
What is poetry? I ask poets and poetry lovers this question. Poet Leon Faesulis says:
Poetry elsewhere
Whether it’s autumn or spring where you live now, going out for a walk is always a good idea. You might find inspiration in chestnuts fallen to the ground, or in the song of a bird. That’s what
did, and she crafted one of her beautiful and fragile poems from the inspiration she found. Enjoy Loony:
Life can lead you down roads to destinations which, once you get there, you realise you don’t want to be there. You can either surrender to being there, or to the fact the road was not the one you should have voyaged on, and head off in a very different direction. Every ending can also be a beginning. To me, that’s what this poem by Leon Faesulis (also of the quote above) can be about. What do you read into it? Enjoy Surrendering by Leon Faesulis:
Sometimes, life really does end. All we can do then is remember or imagine. This haibun (a combination of prose and a haiku poem) is precisely about that. Set in Paris, it’s about love, life and the pain of loss. Enjoy reading L’enfer, c’est les autres:
Your brief poem and lovely prose combine to amplify the beauty and light of autumn. A lovely first-morning read for me.