Winter | When my leaves fall…

by Elouise

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Each fall I think about what might have been.  Hopes, dreams, plans.  One by one, the leaves drop to the ground.  Dead?  Maybe.  The end of the matter?  Perhaps.  There are always surprises ahead.  But can I count on them?  Or is everything downhill from now on?

Here’s another Amy Carmichael poem.  You can read a bit about her here.

Winter

When my leaves fall, wilt Thou encompass them?
The gold of autumn flown, the bare branch brown,
The brittle twig and stem,
The tired leaves dropping down—
Wilt Thou encompass that which we call dead?
I see the rain, the coldly smoth’ring snow;
My leaves, dispirited,
Lie very low.

So the heart questioneth, white winter near;
Till, jocund as the glorious voice of spring,
Cometh His ‘Do not fear,
For sheltered by the coverlet of snow
Are secrets of delight, and there shall be
Uprising* that shall show
All that through winter I prepared for thee.’

*I think Amy C. is referring to things like crocus and snowdrop bulbs that send up shoots and flowers from beneath the snow in late winter/early spring.  They ‘rise up’ through the frozen ground, sometimes ‘heaving up’ the ground before peeking through the “coverlet of snow.”

God loves to create surprises that delight us, especially when our spirits “lie very low.”  So do young children, even though the ‘surprise’ often peeks through its wrapping a bit early.  I think God is like that.  The secrets aren’t just delightful to you and to me, they’re born and nurtured by the delight God takes in each of us.

Have a wonderful weekend!

Amy Carmichael, Mountain Breezes:  The Collected Poems of Amy Carmichael
© 1999, The Dohnavur Fellowship, published by Christian Literature Crusade
Published in Rose from Briers (1933), and Toward Jerusalem (1936)

© Elouise Renich Fraser, 20 November 2014
Photo Credit:  DAFraser, November 2014
Longwood Meadow Garden Edge, November 2014