A small paperback publication called, “aurora,” splits open and faces downward on a round wooden table. The front cover features the lilac haze of daybreak. At the foreground is an aging wooden fence post with patches of white paint stripping off of its sturdy stance against rows of barbed wire. In the background are bare trunks and branches. In between the leafless trees and lonely post lies a patch of lawn still green with life.
It was almost daybreak when I left my house for the airport on Wednesday of this week. I had to catch a 6:30am flight to Atlanta in order to arrive in Lexington by noon. My mind was a soft, purple blur as I drove down 436 to get to the airport by 5am. It’s now Thursday evening and almost midnight. The heater hums and the round armchair creaks with slight shifts of my body. In the past two days, there’s been seven meetings and two dinners. It feels as if I have been away for weeks.
It’s 42 degrees outside. In car rides down I75 and Lancaster Avenue, my eyes soak in the leaves of Lexington and Richmond, Kentucky. I scan bold colors streaking against bleak skies at varying speeds. Cold gray clouds cause me to clench my fists while my hands shrink and my shoulders crunch. Yet I feel alive.
“When the autumn wind blows, down comes the red rain.” ~ Shitao
This one line of poetry, on page 81 of the “aurora,” pierces my heart tonight. I sit, silently contemplating the words of, Shitao, an ancient buddhist monk and artist from China. I can hear the rustling of change from within myself. I lean closer, but the soft whispers still do not make sense. My heart warms with trust. Just as the leaves descend acrobatically and gracefully from the balance of sturdy branches, my mind transitions from busy to buoyancy.
I study nature’s message: death can be beautiful. Such is the demonstration of autumn dying into winter. Daily is the illustration of death when the glow of sunrise dips into the darkness of night. I know that daybreak always awaits.
I flip through mental pictures of maples, sycamores and oaks along the roadside. I find an online photo gallery portraying the fall season in the Lexington Cemetary. Warm memories of John, Jeremy and my grandmother flutter about my mind. Like a flurry of falling leaves, I accept the seasonality of our souls.
The “aurora” book cover once again earns my gaze. Alone, I sit, with the poetic perspective of death serving as a transitional daybreak for tired, leafless trees – which I see now see as stark, naked souls stripped of the exhaustion from living out lessons, and standing in line, ready to be born again.
