It was an ordinary scene
Of extraordinary beauty
The flat clouds drifting
Somehow mauve
In the startling blue
Of a northern sky
Starlings lined up black
On the phone lines
Watching the last leaves
Fall from the hedgerow trees
The cornfields glowing
Gold in late fall light
The combined fields
Stubbled carelessly
Shreds of once tall stalks
Carpeting the fields
Leading to a distant barn
Only the rusted steel roof
Visible in the distance
Woodstove smoke rising
From the hidden farmhouse
Home just over the horizon,
Rest and refuge for the weary.
And the mystery that
Somehow a landscape
So filled with dying
and portents of doom
could somehow provide comfort
to a hopeful heart,
The deep knowing
That all will be well.