Memories are great gifts

Hello friends. The change of season to autumn brings renewed awareness of the physical world. Clouds and rain, wind, and fall colors begin to alternate with bright, blue days. September can bring more chances to think about endings and beginnings, the memories of a life well lived.

There’s renewed interest in eating and simple memories of food, too; with cooler weather I’m reminded of nonna’s cooking. The smell of her mushroom sauce simmering in that small kitchen in Oakland is still with me. I watched her make from scratch the world’s best ravioli which I looked forward to eating with the abandon of youth.

We would collect mushrooms in empty lots and gather eucalyptus pods whose scent was thought to ward off bedroom varmints. I remember her, pitchfork in hand, turning the soil to plant vegetables. And I see her in a long brown overcoat with its fur collar, holding a large purse with both hands in front of her. As an altar boy, I saw this classic country immigrant stance replicated many times. Memories are great gifts. Best, Gene.

 

Oak Leaf Concert

Slowing down with age brings new gifts.

Tall oaks along the driveway are much older
than my twenty-year-old home,
but why haven’t I heard the music before
on a fall morning walking to fetch the newspaper?

It starts slow with rattling leaves
of faded yellow tuning up by the wind’s baton.
The sound grows louder to a major crescendo
as falling leaves cascade in final descent
from different locations nearby.
My cardiologist wants me to end like that.

Yet nature’s symphony offers deeper meaning
than medical games with pacemakers,
as the dying oak leaves contribute to
a spring revival of life, a symbol of
our possibility to enhance peaceful human endings.

“A life well lived” is usually preached toward the past,
but the oaks help us interpret it
toward a better community to come.