If You Are Quiet You Can Hear the Leaves Fall

If you are very quiet you can hear the leaves fall, 
following their twirling, swirling dance with your ears as well as your eyes, until they come to rest gently at your feet.

Even in the noisy tumult of the gales that loosen their grip,
Even amidst the strident tumult that rages in your mind, 
If you stop, and if you will yourself to listen, you will hear their falling-gently-to-earth whispers, rustling through their comrades on their once-in-a-lifetime descent.

Background noise so fills our minds right now...
Outer noise of destruction, of greed, of power wielded wrongly.
Inner voices of fear, of sadness, of outrage, of powerlessness. 
Noise that will surely drown us entirely if we let it and render us deaf, even to the Good.

We desperately need times of stillness. 
We need to turn my attention to that which is beyond ourselves and all our thoughts.
Our heart and soul's very functioning depend upon them.

Grace breaks through as I gaze at reddening and yellowing trees,
standing and swaying in the autumn winds that strip their leaves.
I am renewed.

If you are very quiet, you can hear the leaves fall. 
Listen....