Yellow flowers on the ground
A sonnet about the transition to Fall
The Alchemists Clubhouse is a weekly newsletter of art, poetry, and coaching tips. Full members have access to live and recorded workshops on Zoom.
Upcoming Zoom workshop - Day of the Dead
Mark your calendar for Wednesday, Oct. 30, at 4pm PST. As usual, we’ll meet on Zoom for an hour of guided journaling, this time to honor our ancestors and seek guidance from the spirit realm. If local and global events are weighing on you, I hope this can be a time to sink back into your body and alchemize emotions into clear seeing, purpose, and action.
If you’re a paid subscriber already, THANK YOU! You’ll receive a Zoom link for the workshop a day before. Otherwise, you can either upgrade before Oct. 30 or purchase the workshop a la carte in my new art store.
And now, some Fall poetry…
Every year the Chinese lantern tree in front of our house fills with thousands, maybe millions of tiny yellow flowers and drops them all over our yard and the sidewalk in September and October. During those weeks, there are yellow flowers everywhere: on my clothes, in my hair, in the hall. Then she drops the seeds, then her leaves.
This sonnet is to honor them and the great tree that carries on this annual magical process of simultaneous death and rebirth, despite the urban landscape that prevents any of her hundreds of thousands of children from ever taking root and growing into the forest they were meant to be.
Yellow flowers on the ground
It’s time for yellow flowers on the ground,
their scent enveloping the house like pheromone.
Their mother’s branches claim us as their own,
brush the shingles with a leafy gown.
Wilting petals open for the bees.
The pollen in my nose is fine as spice.
Summer always ends in sacrifice.
My lungs expand to fill with breath of trees.
The caucus of the crows is soft tonight.
A fog horn rumbles thickly from the shore.
I slide my mind away from news of war.
The orange disk of sun drops out of sight.
Seeds that sweeping forests once foretold
fall hard on stone yet fill the air with gold.
How VERY BEAUTIFUL “Yellow Flowers on the Ground”!! Especially to a lover of Autumn season and an honor being born as it enters from the Summer heat. ❤️