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Autumn Sunset

A piece prompted by the glimpse of a beautiful autumn sunrise and sunset either side of a truly miserable rainy day, the memory of an African colleague who rightly castigated me for moaning about Irish weather, the recent devastating forest fires on the West coast of the US affected beautiful areas that we visited last year, and the story of the wife of another colleague who, having been born and brought up by in South America was genuinely traumatised to the point of tears when she experienced her first autumn in Ireland, thinking that all the trees were dying.


The fire in the fall trees seen at dawn 
Seems to have set the evening sky alight 
Despite the downpour of the afternoon. 

We mourn the demise of summer,
The cooling and the shortening days 
And the rain that falls in all seasons.

Yet elsewhere in this abused world 
Ancient tall trees are truly aflame, 
Such that a deluge cannot quench; 

Whilst others beneath blazing skies 
Pray earnestly for long delayed rains 
Whether they are just or unjust.

Let us rejoice in the moment 
And lament what really matters.
There is more to this world than us.

Selah
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