Fire on the mountain, wind,
lightning teach us change. 

Decades pass yet life speaks
in silent tongues of grass.

Change is nothing if not cycles. 
Life death rebirth, repeat.

Return. Fluidity reigns even
as we resist all transformation.

Just as we chart the curves
of a river, we believe nothing

Will change. As much as we
need water, we think we need

These lies. We will be forever 
young, never perish, always

Able to escape vulnerability,
To skirt decline, desiccation.

As we hear our Mother Earth
cry out, the winds of change

Send shivers through all that
is delicate in roses on the fence.

Their pink buds bask in the
sun of summer while silver

Spiders spin webs of deceit,
harboring within the knowledge

That they will last only days
or even hours. The ground 

Is peppered brown petals 
once plump, moist, fragile.

The honey bees stop to seek
pollen from the supple lilies 

Swaying as hummingbirds
hover to suck the blossoms

Knowing the season is short
and is for them too. This is

Change, this constant cycling
from seed to flowering to fruit

To withering. This will be missed.
The buzzing audacity of nature 

The imperative of all beings who
accept death as the grateful mother

Of all that is beautiful. Without the
unstoppable love of these changes,

Green one, mother, maiden, crone, 
wild one, horned one, sage, we are 

Lost from the change connecting 
the circling beings to growth,

Repose. We witness the stunning 
short lives of  our pets, the faithful

Beloved purveyors of the change
we are drawn to fear. Without 

Their sweet startling message
Of evanescence we are utterly

Condemned to worship stasis, 
to deny the undulating dance of 

Life’s seasons. It is solely in
great equanimity, that sense

Of change inherent in loss
That delivers a soaring sense

Of atonement, interconnection
of being that is found and lost

Again, fleeting as breath.
Grieve then for change,

Do not fear. To lose each stage
in the dance of life we mourn,

To love the transitions, to hold 
them dear, and to let them go.

The ancient rite of change is
nothing if not connected,

Embraced, honored by those
who traverse its spiral stages.