HERE AT THE CHURCH O THE PINES by the great river
HERE AT THE CHURCH O THE PINES by the great river, the tall, deacon pines have seen many things. The Spanish-American War, two World Wars, epidemics and pandemics, recessions and depressions, the invention of the radio and television, the telephone, the motion picture, the arrival of the automobile and internal combustion engine, men going to the moon, the great, world-gathering internet. They have also witnessed the yearly migration of geese and swans, cranes and wood ducks, goldeneyes and mallards and teal; the ritual of freeze-up and break-up. They have endured wind storms, ice storms, disease and drought.
Through it all they have endured. Now our nation is confronting a challenge and a threat unseen since the Civil War. Sometimes I feel overwhelmed, as do so many others. And I wonder at the future. Sometimes then I look up at the trees. At the endless blue sky into which they stretch their emerald boughs. I breathe deeply. And a sense of peace replaces dread. And I take in the courage to endure.