Thank you God, for the awe of autumn.

Thank you, God, for the awe of autumn.

For the golden, crinkling leaves, prancing and flittering as the sunlight peeks about crisscrosses of nearly barren branches.

For the warm and hearty scent of pine, as it is glinting, charring, in the smoky woodstove.

And for the soaring of geese in shifting constructions and a scattering cacophony of voracious blackbirds, pecking about, the drifting in of snow birds, preparing for the cold to come.

Thank you for the rustle and then silence of the wind; first blustering and then not, around and through and under and over the jumbling, tumbling, jostling leaves.

Who could conjure up a crisp new day?

With a chill that can take your breath away or a dewy dawn softness that slickens the earth.

What creature here could ever illuminate the deepening afternoon with a burning, burnt orange sun?

Who would dream up the quick dash of a squirrel? The moseying meandering gait of a groundhog?

The flicking chipmunk’s tail as it snatches up seeds, darting this way and then, that?

A sunken in squash, baring its savory seeds, or a crispy, crunchy head of kale or a left-over ear of corn, drying in the faintest hint of almost-gone summer sun?

Who could imagine such gifts, these? The passing of time, as one season blurs on, becoming the next.  The slow changes that surprise; the subtleties of earth that never disappoint if one pauses to see.

And breathe.

And think.

And be blessed.

Who sends the warming sun and the frigid chilling breeze?  Who tells the robins to go, and the chickadees to stay, and the graceful deer to search for their mate?

Who calls the heart ever to Himself? There is but One.

Thank you God, for the spectacles of fall.