Well, it happened. For the first time since re-launching this blog, I missed a post. I had committed to posting at least once a month but I missed October. It’s not for the lack of trying. I wrote two pieces but hated one and didn’t finish the other. I sat up Halloween night hiding from the trick-or-treaters while trying to come up with something. Nothing. I closed my laptop and turned on the TV.
I have this problem more autumns than I want to admit. I seem to follow a pattern. The leaves change color and start to fall and I get depressed. Then the temperatures dip and I begin to eat for comfort (and store fat for the winter, I guess). I have trouble writing, which I hate because writing is my real comfort. I swore I was going to resist the pattern this year. I thought I’d stored enough warm sunshine in Tulum in September to see me through. But the empty takeout containers in my recycling bin and the lack of an October post seems to mean it wasn’t enough.
It’ll be ok, I’ll make it through. At this point in my life I’ve learned it’s not either this or that, warmth or cold, light or dark, it’s both. There is beauty in the warm sea tides and the fallen leaves. So, I’ll share with you poems about both. The first is one I wrote which is actually part of a larger work by the same name.
The Only Things Certain
Dying
green
cascading brown
down
to stream water
wearing still rock.
Degrading
green
turning red
up
reaching, beseeching
to moving sky.
Trees, stream, sky.
Passing out of,
seen
and unseen
beauty
in change
and death.
(©Kat Tennermann2018)
And then there’s this one from the beach in Tulum. It’s a Navajo poem courtesy of Richard Rohr’s Daily Meditation. I read this out loud every morning.
Walk in Beauty
In beauty I walk
With beauty before me I walk
With beauty behind me I walk
With beauty above me I walk
With beauty around me I walk
It has become beauty again
It has become beauty again
It has become beauty again
It has become beauty again.
Stop Along The Way 
It was worth the wait just for your poem. I know fall affects many people this way, but I’ve always seen it as the start of new things, most likely the back to school feeling.
Please do keep writing, if only to say you’re having trouble doing it, because that lets us, who are fearful about writing, know it’s not because we can’t, it’s because it’s hard and takes hard work.
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Thanks Elaine, for your consistent support and encouragement!
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Those are two apt selections, one darker, one more hopeful, both lovely in their own way.
I’m sad to know the seasonal changes affect your mood and I hope you find many comforts until spring returns 🙂
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Thanks Joey. Like you, I have the love of family. It’s what really keeps me going. But there’s also books and food. 😀
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Right on. Winter is great for books and comfort food. Gravy, soup, noodles, chili, pot pie… 😛 and books, and blankets, and fuzzy socks!
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It is a bit of a downer to watch the earth “go to bed” for the winter. I’d love to read your complete work entitled “The Only things Certain”. The Navajo poem makes a good mantra for meditation. Thanks so much for sharing both!!
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I enjoyed this piece and this is a very real struggle for writers. This time of the year is especially challenging. The season is telling us to just rest and hibernate – especially when we have access to a warm fireplace. 🙂 Keep writing and expressing!
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Thanks Karen! As you know I have access to a fireplace and a frequently full fridge.
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[…] I wrote a while ago. It’s part of a larger work I posted a poem from a few months ago titled The Only Things Certain. The poem begins the work and this bit ends it. Enjoy and thanks for […]
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