Louisville Process Theology Network

To Ashes

All the green trees bring

their rings to you

the widening circles of their years to you

late and soon

casting down their crowns into you

at once they are gone

not to appear

as themselves again

O season of your own

from whom now

even the fire has move on

out of the green voices

and the days of summer

out of the spoken names

and words between them

the mingled nights

the hands the hopes the faces

those circling ages

dancing in flames

as we see now

afterward

here before you

O you with no beginning

that we can conceive of

no end that we can foresee

you of whom once we were made

before we knew ourselves

in this season of our own.

By W.S. Merwin