The way the trees sway in the wind, and the birds burst into song, can fill the heart. Not just with leaves falling, but with whispers of all that was, and all that will be: how a river remembers its song.

The water is waiting for words.
    It seeks the sound of footsteps,    day by day, etching
      the silence of the rocks.

Who can tell the secret of the earth, swimming deep in the silence, under the skin of the world? Each leaf, when it falls, is a doorway from which our dreams hang quietly.

• William Stafford