Red III

When Time Is Ripe

Down the familiar road each rut

is a revelation

full of its secrets.
As when time is ripe each day

there is something to be understood

which cannot be understood

completely.

A leaf lifts from its branch

and falls red and gold

at a message of weather

a wind with an edge.

And that is never the end. Repeatedly

new things happen. Time ripens

again and again.

The fruit fills

and numbers of birds gather,

flights mapped in their systems, their wings

imprinted with certainties

telling them summer will follow.
It is all predictable

and surprising, the weather’s direction

the rut and the wrinkling pod

the sun-mapped wings of the robin.

Ellen Murphy, CSJ

1978

A book of Ellen Murphy's poetry will be published next month. Stay tuned for details.