I happened upon this poem earlier this week and it caught my sense of the turn of the season perfectly. I won’t say more – it’s a short poem that speaks for itself. Perhaps it will put words to your experience as it has to mine. November Night Listen. With faint dry sound, ...

In his poem “On Aging,” the 13th century Sufi mystic Rumi asks a question that we have all asked at one time or another. Why do we grow old? For that matter, why does everything grow old? His answer is strikingly similar to that of The Teacher, better known as the author of Ecclesiastes,...

Commuting from Philadelphia to St. Paul this fall – and with multiple side trips ranging from North Dakota to Virginia and the Carolinas — I’ve been more sensitive than usual to the common rhythm of seasonal change and to the diverse ways that change occurs in different parts of the...

The leaves are turning in our neck of the woods. There’s something so gloriously alive about the fall, and yet a tinge of sadness as well. Which is probably what put me in mind of Robert Frost’s familiar Nothing Gold Can Stay. I don’t know that Frost had this at all in mind, but it...