Beauty and thanksgiving
One fall years ago, my mother sent me a copy of “God’s World,” by Edna St. Vincent Millay. It was her favorite poem, and she read it every autumn when western Pennsylvania mountains were bursting with vivid red, gold and brown color against the green pines.
O world, I cannot hold thee close enough! . . .
Thy woods, this autumn day, that ache and sag
And all but cry with colour! . . .
Lord, I do fear
Thou’st made the world too beautiful this year.
Now I’m the one who reads the poem every autumn. There are no mountains in Chicago, but from my 11th-floor window in the Century office I see two long rows of brilliant red maples in Millennium Park, surrounded by other trees beginning to turn from green to yellow.
