Nature Blooms In Differences
Any priority given to exercise
in a morning walk
subtracts from nature
the reason I was here.
It is to such encounter
as is noise to the world of silence,
as intrusion
to the purpose of solitude.
Such encounter should come to see
to hear secrets that are invisible
to every other occupation.
Such encounter should wake us
from the poverty of our hurry
from the business of thought
cluttered already with tomorrow.
Fall seeks surrender in quiet dignity
before the the sovereign will of Winter.
The colors of its passing reign
cling to leaves surrendering
carpeting the ground beneath my step.
I wonder of the leaves
not indigenous to this rural land
they and their trees
are immigrants to this place.
Autumn Maple from the North
Red Oak from southern valleys,
Willow from the South
Hemlocks from the East
They neighbor with natural evergreens
free of any grievance at their occupation
free from burden or suspicion.
They simply are and take their place
each as neighbor to the other
with vitality and imported color.
There is no complaint of intrusion,
no protest of uninvited trespass,
just agreement, to blend and to compliment.
Nature does not fence its welcome with condition,
it is her pleasure to take from differences,
that which adds to splendor.
The integration of her immigrants,
is lost against the distance,
in the scattered color of her adopted children.
They root, indiscriminately and never gather to a place
because of sameness or common heritage.
Shrubs root in exquisite randomness
and grasses seed at will,
where ever there is unclaimed ground.
A collective color from scattered origins
without agenda or intended purpose,
but to be, to grow, to colonize.
I wonder of a subtraction from such beauty
were sameness a requisite of nature's imagination.
I wonder if man suffers such subtraction,
from his cautionary embrace,
of those who do not reflect his sameness?
I wonder why differences mark human minds in fear,
why human hearts are fenced with preferences of sameness.
Color that differs in appearance, in thought, in habit or heritage,
are after all, nothing more than human foliage on display.
odd that the beauty we find in nature
is gathered from the absence of sameness
yet, not so fondly held in our view of one another
Perhaps nature sees a beauty in itself
that human kind will come to know
that beauty flourishes in sovereignty,
where copies do not grow.
