The Raintree's Lesson Poem by Barry Middleton

It is that time of year again,
the raintree buds are green as spring.
And yet it is September now,
and soon I'll see what fall will bring.
Now nature always tries to teach,
I see the greening buds as youth.
Though I'm a half step out of phase,
I do still search for love and truth.
October sets the golden blooms,
much like that season of a life
when jobs become a new career,
and each young man will seek a wife.
But seasons turn to autumn red,
the wife and children soon are gone,
and so the raintree speaks to me,
the universe must move along.
I reach to take November's test,
the russet seed pods seem to know,
I open one if just to see,
the umber seeds, the final show.
And I have been this way before,
and learned to see the raintree's way,
that life's a cycle till the end,
before it fades to yesterday.
And yet it does not end at all,
as seeds fall to the earth and sprout,
and new life takes its place in line,
to search the season's roundabout.