I came bearing tea, bread and poetry
to talk about sadness this rain-slashed afternoon.
It's the leaves, you said, they let go so gently
this late in the year as if, finally, they have accepted?
We watched, saying nothing for a while.
You showed me tamarack, blazing golden
the brilliant yellow of ferns in wet grasses.
 
Now tonight there are first whirling snowflakes.
Among them still shimmers a scarlet shrub,
though last week there was a hard frost.
In the bush two roses are blooming
fresh and bright, even a third buds in the snow.
We do not expect these gifts in November.
So much we don't expect in this life ~~
 
            how bravely flowers can bloom in winter,
            how sorrow can reside so near to joy,
            how sometimes they can be the same.

© by Sharon Auberle.
Used with the author's permission.