‘Listen to the long stillness: New life is stirring. New dreams are on the wing. New hopes are being readied: Humankind is fashioning a new heart. Humankind is forging a new mind God is at work. This is the season of Promise’.
Howard Thurman
Seasons are slow
to turn.
Slow to arrive
slow to shed themselves
to re-emerge
as something new.
Seasons cannot be
circumvented,
cannot be navigated around,
shortened, or outwitted,
but must be fully
experienced.
A tree must root, and sprout
and grow
to lose its leaves, and stand
in stark silhouette against the sky.
Winter must first walk through our hearts
with its frost covered feet
before we can sense the
thawing of a coming spring.
Seasons are slow
to change.
From conception
to birth we wait
with bated breath
for the signs of life
the movement in the womb
to signal relief.
Birth is slow but death
and growth
and change
are a constant turning cycle.
We are on the edge
of something new
can you not feel it
like a great awakening in the earth.
Ana Lisa de Jong
June 2018
‘Flowers appear on the earth; the season of singing has come, the cooing of doves is heard in our land.’
Song of Solomon 2:12
‘Keep a green tree in your heart, and perhaps a singing bird will come’
Chinese Proverb
Living Tree Poetry 