The gardens are closed for the season. The trees have lost their brilliant color. The cold is settling in. Yet, we can still marvel at nature. We can still notice the beauty all around us. We can still take strolls outside, despite the cold, and simply pay attention.
Here is a poem I wrote after walking through the gardens last week, with some of these thoughts in mind. Happy Thanksgiving to all, and let us be thankful for this beautiful Earth, and all of its many gifts.
Moon in Ice
The architecture of limbs
Is laid bare,
But the pines
still hold their green—
Calmly, coolly,
Evergreen.
I walk through the gardens
At night,
Snow and ice, here and there
Along the paths.
No lights but distant street lamps
And a bright, white, cold
Half moon.
The pond is frozen, thinly.
The ice reflects the moon.
I stand on the zig zag bridge,
Next to a pine of medium height,
Who is rooted in the cold ground,
Impassive in the cold.
We are part of this Earth—
Connected—
As connected as tree roots
To dirt.
We have these brains,
These eyes, these hands;
And now these screens,
Phones, cars;
The digital, electronic;
The space ships…
But still, however tricked out
However imaginative, creative,
Whatever we might build
Or dream…
Still, here, now, we live and die
On this Earth;
We eat and drink the Earth,
We breathe it in and out;
We are built of its materials,
And so
Is everything we know.
Surrounded by concrete,
Streets and yards,
Friends and neighbors,
We live within our human systems,
And, perhaps, forget…
That we are of this place
It is in our blood, and we in its…
We neglect to take a moment
To observe—
The moon reflected in ice
And the architecture of limbs.
—Matthew Eighmy