Thanks to you all! Jim, your posts remind us of the beauty around us and within us. You are a poet! As I watch our trees lose their last leaves, and look forward to this weekend, when your storm may even reach as far as south of the Mason Dixon Line, I read with hope and awe your linking of our lives as caregivers with trees.
Here is a poem from Mary Oliver
When I Am Among the Trees
When I am among the trees,
especially the willows and the honey locust,
equally the beech, the oaks and the pines,
they give off such hints of gladness.
I would almost say that they save me, and daily.
I am so distant from the hope of myself,
in which I have goodness, and discernment,
and never hurry through the world
but walk slowly, and bow often.
Around me the trees stir in their leaves
and call out, "Stay awhile."
The light flows from their branches.
And they call again, "It's simple," they say,
"and you too have come
into the world to do this, to go easy, to be filled
with light, and to shine."