Evidence of the Unseen

November is late this year.
The chill is delayed.
The first hard frost has yet to fall.

The leaves however, are right on schedule.
Stripped by wind and weather, trees barren
against the landscape.

Death comes on its own timetable
and the rest of us simply follow,
rearrange what is left into art and shelter,

saving ourselves, at times not knowing why,
but secretly believing in resurrections
we have not seen.

About this poem.

This morning, on the way to one of my backup diners, I was thinking about my darkest times. I never contemplated suicide, believing that somehow, there was a better life for me, even if I could not see it, And of course, there was.

Yesterday, in my hospice work, I spent time with a lady in her last hours. She had lived an extraordinary life and it was an honor to be there with her and her son near the end. She spent much of the second half of her life as a missionary to China and various countries in Africa.

The title is taken from Hebrews 1:1 – Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.“

From all that this morning, this poem.

Tom

PS: The picture was taken in Surry County, Virginia, on what was my grandfather’s farm. For some reason, when I saved the picture, I titled it “Saving ourselves”. And that is where the line about saving comes from. Poems, even small ones like this one, are often far more complex than most of us realize.