I Descend Into the Beauty – A Poem by Tim Melton

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I wrote the following poem from the perspective of a dying maple leaf. Several years ago I was driving along Interstate 81 heading toward Roanoke, Virginia. It was the fall of the year and the leaves were absolutely gorgeous. I pulled my car over to the side of the road to enjoy a breathtaking view that overlooked a valley filled with white farmhouses and green pastures. The surrounding trees were brilliantly splotched with every color that Autumn could possibly render. As I stood there drinking in the scene, I noticed a maple tree on the

side of the ridge beside me. Its head stretching in the wind, the tree grew out sideways over the valley and as a result it had lost almost all of its leaves. In fact, I took special note of one bright yellow leaf that shivered in the wind. That leaf had hung fast when almost every other had fallen to its’ death, floating down hundreds of feet into the valley. I wrote this poem with that leaf in mind. I, like that little leaf, cling to life. I hang on with the vain hope that I will live forever, scared to death of the undiscover’d country, from whose bourn no traveler returns. Yet, that day will come, sooner than I realize, when the Autumn Daystar (the Autumn Sun/Christ) will call me to let go of that which was never mine. When that day arrives, I must surrender to the music that sounds my departure from this world. May Christ prepare me for that day, so that I may joyously release my grip on this life. “Jesus, bid me come.”

I Descend into The Beauty

a poem by Tim Melton

I look beyond the rolling scene
Of nugget hills and brilliant earth painted with the hue of Autumn charms,
Red and Orange and Crimson Yellow splotched with fields of Green grass meadow
Sprinkled with their spotted Cattle and dotted bold with whitewashed Farms;
I see the beauty of redemption and what awaits me as I dangle
From the Ridge above the Valley,
I fear what lies below

I hold not to life but she weakly cleaves to me
Distracted by the call of compensation, she will toss me from her flimsy grip.
And so the icy breeze whispers through my tender brittle frame
as I tremble with the yellow that creeps into my veins, compelling me to slip;
While I war against the beauty of the death that calls beneath,
Holding fast to the Maple,
I fear what lies below

The winds exhale colossal bluster against my struggle to cleave tight,
but without fingers I cannot grasp what was never mine
So I succumb to the prodigious blows from the gales that claim my life
And dancing with defiant rythym to the tune of revolution and the beat of time,
I descend into the beauty, yielding now to what awaits me;
Singing soft the Song Of Mystery…
”Autumn Daystar Bid Me Come”

- Tim Melton, October, 1999