An Autumn Feast

The following are two poems that always come to mind in October. What a world we live in! There is so much exquisite beauty all around us and on so many levels, from the shine off a beetle's black wing and the fantastic design of a butterfly's wing, to the shapes of the clouds and the stars in the sky and the galaxies so far off they are only specks of light. And all of it is a Voice booming, "Look and see!" All of it is a continual unfolding, a daily revelation for us: "For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse.  (Romans 1:19-20, ESV)

These poems express so well what autumn does in my heart and for my soul - and not just autumn, but every season. If we spend time each day observing Nature's continual revelation of the God who is there, it will whet our appetites for more of Him. Nature is the appetizer; He is the feast. May we all savor the sips and nibbles of His greatness in creation and may it cause us to have a ravenous hunger for Him. May we all "Taste and see that the Lord is good!" And then let us come as we are bidden to His table! 

'Pied Beauty' by Gerard Manly Hopkins

Glory be to God for dappled things –

For skies of couple-colour as a brinded cow;

For rose-moles all in stipple upon trout that swim;

Fresh-firecoal chestnut-falls; finches’ wings;

Landscape plotted and pieced – fold, fallow, and plough;

And áll trádes, their gear and tackle and trim.

All things counter, original, spare, strange;

Whatever is fickle, freckled (who knows how?)

With swift, slow; sweet, sour; adazzle, dim;

He fathers-forth whose beauty is past change:

Praise him.

'God's World'

BY Edna St. Vincent Millay

O world, I cannot hold thee close enough!

Thy winds, thy wide grey skies! 

Thy mists, that roll and rise!

Thy woods, this autumn day, that ache and sag

And all but cry with colour!  That gaunt crag

To crush! To lift the lean of that black bluff!

World, World, I cannot get thee close enough!

Long have I known a glory in it all,

But never knew I this;

Here such a passion is

As stretcheth me apart,—Lord, I do fear

Thou’st made the world too beautiful this year;

My soul is all but out of me,—let fall

No burning leaf; prithee, let no bird call.