Thanksgiving tables & change

who’s not there

I am drawn to seasons, to mountains,
to a creek I’ve known all my life,
and the more things change,
the more, in some ways,
they remain the same,
I come around a corner
and I feel I’ve been here before,
and yet in other ways I feel the constancy of loss,
what remains the same is the episodic withdrawal
of those I love to that unknown elsewhere,

thus, the more things change,
the more the larger I does not remain the same,

the trees glory in color in the Fall
and bare themselves as if in grief, every year,
the forest erupts in hope every Spring,
and holds past and future every Summer
in the riot of lush exuberance, Summer’s present,

there’s a constancy of tables at Thanksgiving,
yet who is there changes, and I miss each loss,
how wonderful to gain those new who can sit in the chairs,
how sad to lose those I love
who no longer can joy in the sharing with us.

by Henry H. Walker
November 23, ’11