The once bright revelry of leaves
is now fallen on hard times and
the frost-hardened earth beneath.
The weary trees already dream within
their blackened bark, and not even a
cricket sings in the shriveled grass
along the frozen stream of time.
But we are not so easily constrained.
For the open eye and seeing mind,
now is the hour of a different star
and things the summer does not know.
Now is the time of hopes renewed –
and we, standing on the beaches
of future days, smile in our minds –
our feet washed by the lapping of
the warm, recurring sine-waves
of sunlight, hope, and time.