Kate’s poem:

AUTUMN
Autumn is a scenario:
season of parting and transformation,
brisk winds, early frosts, fading flowers,
a cool well of finalities.

Right now in my back yard
the lawn is an ocean of fallen leaves
on which one lawn chair sits abandoned,
drifting out to sea toward winter.

Sr. Caroline

The pear tree had a rugged year:
drought was too much for it,
taking almost every leaf
even before the rust of autumn.

But the tree’s own sweetness
left a wisdom-message
in its web of stricken branches:
one green and nearly-perfect pear
proving life is more than the sum of the weather.

Sr. Kate