Autumn Tree - Words from Rilke and Trees from Here

Friday night as I was settling for bed, I read my evening poem and it was this from Rainer Maria Rilke - a poem of his that I had never read before. I think I re-read it 4-5 times last night and it stayed with me as I woke on both on Saturday and Sunday morning. From Uncollected Poems and quoted in Anita Barrows and Joanna Macy’s collection, A Year With Rilke.

Autumn Tree
Oh tall tree of our knowing, shedding its leaves:
It’s a matter now of facing the preponderance
of sky appearing through its branches.
Filled by summer, it seemed deep and thick,
filling our minds, too, so comfortably.
Now its whole interior is an avenue of stars.
And the stars do not know us.¹

We have come to that time in Autumn around here when the leaves are now mostly off the trees. Our sweetgum tree is a bit behind the schedule (still a lot of leaves falling) but most others are starting to look more of their winter bareness. So, with Rilke’s words still in my heart, I went looking to photograph trees like he describes in this beautiful poem. So I invite you to re-read the poem and then here are the trees I photographed.

A progression over a few weeks

And then just a few others that don’t really fit - a rare white squirrel and some singular red leaves holding on…

And finally, two versions of the same photo of Scout. One shows what happens when Portrait mode on iOS goes bad - basically its like Scout is all head!

Grace, Peace, Love, Hope, and Joy,
Ed

PS - Calendars! :-) Click here for more

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1. From Uncollected Poems as quoted in Barrows, Anita; Macy, Joanna. A Year with Rilke: Daily Readings from the Best of Rainer Maria Rilke (p. 325). Kindle Edition.