Summer is a promissory note signed in June, its long days spent and gone before you know it, and due to be repaid next January.

October is the fallen leaf, but it is also a wider horizon more clearly seen. It is the distant hills once more in sight, and the enduring constellations above them once again.

Knowing trees, I understand the meaning of patience. Knowing grass, I can appreciate persistence.

Consider the wheelbarrow. It may lack the grace of an airplane, the speed of an automobile, the initial capacity of a freight car, but its humble wheel marked out the path of what civilization we still have.

Year’s end is neither an end nor a beginning, but a going on, with all the wisdom that experience can instill in us.

Knowing trees, I understand the meaning of patience. Knowing grass, I can appreciate persistence.