MEMORIAL AUTUMN LEAVES

for our children

page 1 of 3

THE TREE OF LIFE

There is a tree that stands alone
With branches bending low,
Holding on to Autumn leaves.
Never wanting to let go.

The branches love the Autumn leaves
And embrace September's winds.
Laughing in the sunshine
Thinking this will never end.

Hold on you golden Autumn leaves
And orange and red and brown.
Please don't loose the branch's grip
And tumble to the ground.

But sometimes there's a sudden gust
And the branch is unaware
That the wind has blown so harsh
And sent their leaf into the air.

The branch thought it was holding tight
But the wind was much too strong
And took away the branch's grip
Making everything so wrong.

And sometimes it's a gentle breeze
That takes Autumn leaves away.
The branches watch them tumble down
And wonder why the leaves can't stay.

The barren tree stands all alone.
Empty twigs whisper "goodbye".
A wind lifts up the fallen leaves
And sends them floating through the sky.

The leaves gather above the clouds
Waiting for their special branch
To meet them at the "tree of life"
Where "forever" has a chance.

So listen when the wind blows,
As it howls through the trees.
You can hear the lonesome sound
Of a branch that lost it's leaves.

© 2007 - Christine Ross
~ in memory of Lucas Christopher Ross 1979 - 2001

THE TWO ASPENS

Once there were two aspens
Standing tall against the sky,
Taking in the warmth of breezes
As their leaves just fluttered by.

Then from those two tall aspens
Two more little aspens grew
In a grove there in the forest
Touched by the morning dew.

They gathered in the sunshine.
Then they quenched upon the rain.
Four aspens playing in the wind
Sometime before the winter came.

In the springtime how they glistened.
They had the warmth of summer winds.
Little did the four trees know
This would never come again.

Autumn gave them golden leaves
As they stood so proud and tall
Then suddenly a cold wind blew
And their leaves began to fall.

The wind was blowing violently
With a howling lonesome sound.
Then with an eerie silence
One tree fell to the ground.

The youngest tree lay cold and still
As the sky released the rain.
Then drops of sorrow trickled down
From the three trees that remained.

Raindrops quietly turned to snow,
Just as the barren aspens feared.
Autumn, spring, and summer... gone
And a long, long winter... here.

© 2008 - Christine Ross
In memory of Lucas Christopher Ross 1979 - 2001

"THE TWO ASPENS"
Published in
LIVING WITH LOSS MAGAZINE
Fall 2009, Volume 24 No. 3
Bereavement Publications, Inc.

AUTUMN LEAVES

....by Frank Sinatra

The falling leaves
Drift by the window
The autumn leaves
Of red and gold

I see your lips
The summer kisses
The sunburned hands
I used to hold

Since you went away
The days grow long
And soon I'll hear
Old winter's song

But I miss you most of all
My darling
When autumn leaves
Start to fall

A LONELY SEPTEMBER

.....Plain White T's

I'm sittin' here all by myself
just tryin' to think of something to do
Tryin' to think of something, anything
just to keep me from thinking of you
But you know it's not working out
'cause you're all that's on my mind
One thought of you is all it takes
to leave the rest of the world behind

WAKE ME UP WHEN SEPTEMBER ENDS

.....Green Day

Summer has come and passed
The innocent can never last
wake me up when september ends

like my fathers come to pass
seven years has gone so fast
wake me up when september ends

here comes the rain again
falling from the stars
drenched in my pain again
becoming who we are

as my memory rests
but never forgets what I lost
wake me up when september ends

summer has come and passed
the innocent can never last
wake me up when september ends

ring out the bells again
like we did when spring began
wake me up when september ends

here comes the rain again
falling from the stars
drenched in my pain again
becoming who we are

as my memory rests
but never forgets what I lost
wake me up when september ends

Summer has come and passed
The innocent can never last
wake me up when september ends

like my father's come to pass
twenty years has gone so fast
wake me up when september ends
wake me up when september ends
wake me up when september ends

SEPTEMBER MORN

.....written by Neil Diamond and Gilbert Becaud

Stay for just a while
Stay, and let me look at you
It's been so long, I hardly knew you
Standing in the door
Stay with me a while
I only wanna talk to you
We've traveled halfway 'round the world
To find ourselves again

Autumn is a second spring when every leaf
is a flower.

Albert Camus (1913 - 1960)

If winter is slumber and spring is birth,
and summer is life,
then autumn rounds out to be reflection.
It's a time of year when the leaves are down
and the harvest is in and the perennials are gone.
Mother Earth just closed up the drapes on another year
and it's time to reflect on what's come before.

~ Mitchell Burgess 1992

There is a harmony In autumn,
and a lustre in its sky,
Which through the summer is not heard or seen,
As if it could not be,
as if it had not been!

~ Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792 - 1822)

Winter is an etching,
spring a watercolor,
summer an oil painting
and autumn a mosaic of them all.

~ Stanley Horowitz

No spring nor summer beauty hath such grace
As I have seen in one autumnal face.

~ John Donne

Besides the autumn poets sing,
A few prosaic days
A little this side of the snow
And that side of the haze.

~ Emily Dickinson

falling leaves hide the path so quietly

~ John Bailey, "Autumn," a haiku year, 2001

Youth is like spring,
an over praised season
more remarkable for biting winds than genial breezes.
Autumn is the mellower season,
and what we lose in flowers we more than gain in fruits.

~ Samuel Butler

All those golden autumn days the sky was full of wings.
Wings beating low over the blue water of Silver Lake,
wings beating high in the blue air far above it . . .
bearing them all away to the green fields in the South.

~ Laura Ingalls Wilder

I saw old autumn in the misty morn
Stand shadowless like silence,
listening To silence.

~ Thomas Hood

I trust in Nature for the stable laws Of beauty and utility.
Spring shall plant And Autumn garner to the end of time.

~ Robert Browning

Tears, idle tears,
I know not what they mean,
Tears from the depth of some divine despair,
Rise in the heart and gather in the eyes,
In looking on the happy autumn fields,
And thinking of the days that are no more.

~ Alfred, Lord Tennyson

The smile that flickers on baby's lips when he sleeps-
does anybody know where it was borne?
Yes, there is a rumor
that a young pale beam of a crescent moon touched the edge of a vanishing autumn cloud,
and there the smile was first born . . . .

~ Rabindranath Tagore

Gone are the birds that were our summer guests.

~ Longfellow