Mother Nature tends to her own.

The sun surrenders earlier now,
The hours shrink against the brow
Of hills that gather deepening shade;
A hurried passage freshly made
Where summer’s long bright promise knelt,
And twilight’s chill is keenly felt.

The hasty riot of the weed
Has slowed its frantic, pushing creed;
The urgent, thirsty thrust of green
Recedes to show what lies between
The ending rush and patient rest,
When earth withdraws into her breast.

A subtle glaze of amber dust
Appears where verdant fullness thrust;
The changing leaf, a hesitant sigh,
Confirms the autumn drawing nigh.
The forest waits, prepared to shed,
To let the brittle, necessary dead
Fall back to feed the coming year.

For Mother Nature has a way
To measure darkness, map the day,
And manage what must thrive or rot;
A wisdom greater than our thought.
She knows the measure of the blight,
The price required to purchase light.

Some ancient boughs must lose their form,
To shelter new life from the storm;
The fallen trunk, the broken stem,
Are merely parts of her diadem.
She clears the choked and crowded space,
With sovereign, unhurried grace.

She holds the balance, stern and true,
Between the old and what is new,
And charts the cycle, seed to stone,
Mother Nature tends to her own.