Spring and Fall

to a young child

Márgarét, áre you gríeving
Over Goldengrove unleaving?
Leáves like the things of man, you
With your fresh thoughts care for, can you?
Ah! ás the heart grows older
It will come to such sights colder
By and by, nor spare a sigh
Though worlds of wanwood leafmeal lie;
And yet you wíll weep and know why.
Now no matter, child, the name:
Sórrow’s spríngs áre the same.
Nor mouth had, no nor mind, expressed
What heart heard of, ghost guessed:
It ís the blight man was born for,
It is Margaret you mourn for.

This wise and well known poem by Gerard Manly Hopkins is one I have committed to memory. One of the advantages of growing older for me has not been so much to be colder in the face of triggers for sorrow than to understand them better and to allow them to arise and subside in their season. I don’t feel innured to life’s pain so much as being better fitted to endure it and even sometimes learn from it. What I really love about this poem is its music. Who else could have crafted the line “though worlds of wanwood leafmeal lie…”?

Background on My Poem, “Harvesting Enshrined Scraps”:

This month has been a time of looking through family photographs and deciding which to keep and which to release. It is not an easy process for most of us–assigning personal value to paper that carries no intrinsic value. Discoveries range from the delightful to the disconcerting. Perhaps the most valuable aspect for me is recognizing that everything (animate and inanimate) has a lifespan, and with periodic reviews it gets easier for me to recognize this and to act accordingly to release what is no longer alive with meaning for me. A form of telling time unavailable to the young, perhaps.

Wishing you a happy day, and a happy season! LESLIE