<div dir="auto">Desmond,<div dir="auto">The poem brought tears, joyous one's. May the memories wrap you in blessings as Ann joins the Saints.</div><div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto">Sunny<br><br><div data-smartmail="gmail_signature" dir="auto">Sunny Walker, <br>Certified Professional Facilitator | Emeritus <br>Certified ToP Facilitator <br>ToP Mentor Trainer<br>303-587-3017 <br><a href="mailto:sunny@virtualfacilitationcollaborative.com">sunny@virtualfacilitationcollaborative.com</a> <br> </div></div></div><br><div class="gmail_quote"><div dir="ltr" class="gmail_attr">On Fri, Oct 7, 2022, 5:24 AM PAUL SCHRIJNEN via OE <<a href="mailto:oe@lists.wedgeblade.net">oe@lists.wedgeblade.net</a>> wrote:<br></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex"><div style="word-wrap:break-word"><div dir="ltr" style="font-family:ArialMT">Desmond Avery writes:</div><div dir="ltr" style="font-family:ArialMT"><br></div><div dir="ltr" style="font-family:ArialMT"><u>Ann Harrison Avery, 16 December 1940 - 25 September 2022</u></div><div dir="ltr" style="font-family:ArialMT">Full of gratitude for Ann’s life, we sang ‘For all the the saints’ at her funeral in our local church in rural England the day before yesterday. The church was full, and everybody knew the tune. In his eulogy Paul Schrijnen read this poem Ann had written one previous October:</div><div dir="ltr" style="font-family:ArialMT"><br></div><div dir="ltr" style="font-family:ArialMT">
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left:36.0pt;text-indent:36.0pt"><b><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif"><i>Autumn Joy<u></u><u></u></i></span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left:36.0pt"><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif"><i><br>
I like to shuffle through the leaves</i></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left:36.0pt"><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif"><i>yellow and brown</i></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif"><i><span style="white-space:pre-wrap"> </span> Beauty all over the ground.<br>
<u></u><u></u></i></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:36.0pt"><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif"><i>I could just keep on looking down.<br>
But then I look up at the branches<br>
Where the last leaves linger<br>
just a few days longer<br>
still some green with yellow and gold<br>
each tree different<br>
black trunk's shape showing through<br>
as the tree undresses gradually.<br>
Soon it will stand, stark naked against the sky.<br>
<u></u><u></u></i></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:36.0pt"><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif"><i>I remember autumns in other times and other places.<br>
- Red maples in a Toronto cemetery,<br>
- Virginia creeper in Geneva as scarlet as in Wellingore<br>
- Red sumac in Chattanooga on a red-clay lot as it is now on our green garden<br>
- A golden forest in a park south of Paris.<br>
<u></u><u></u></i></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:36.0pt"><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif"><i>My mother's birthday is in October - is that why I love autumn?<br>
Or is it, that I love the fact, that the colours are always present in the leaf<br>
Hidden beneath the chlorophyll, <br>
And the idea that the colours of our lives are always within us,<br>
waiting to blaze forth as the greenness of youth recedes?</i><u></u><u></u></span></p>
</div><div dir="ltr" style="font-family:ArialMT"><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left:72.0pt;text-indent:36.0pt"><br></p></div><div dir="ltr" style="font-family:ArialMT">The colours are doing just that here now.</div></div>_______________________________________________<br>
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