Light-jewels fall through lacy evergreens
As the golden breeze carries a dozen leaves
To their final place
Beneath the generous oak
Who parented them.
The morning’s fog has drifted into memory,
But these leaves still speak to their siblings
As the jays stride among them on their tall legs,
Still whisper as the soft air currents
Shift and lift them nearer their neighbors.
And when a child responds to their call,
They laugh and riot with his feet,
Touch and tickle him,
Celebrate autumn’s swirling everchange
With the spirits of our beloveds
Hovering in oaks and pines.
Rose Anna Higashi taught Japanese Literature, Poetry and Creative Writing at Evergreen Valley College in San Jose, California for thirty-five years. Upon retirement, she was commissioned by then-Bishop Patrick McGrath, to serve as a Lay Ecclesial Minister in the Diocese of San Jose. In this capacity, she spent nine years as Director of Adult Religious Education at St. Mary of the Immaculate Conception Parish in Los Gatos. She now lives in Kaaawa in rural Hawaii with her husband Wayne. They look forward to celebrating their 60th anniversary in 2023. Rose Anna’s poetry journal, Blue Wings, was published by Paulist Press, and many of her lyric poems and haiku can be viewed on her website, myteaplanner.com, which also contains her monthly blog, “Tea and Travels.” Earlier in 2022, her poems have appeared in The Catholic Poetry Room, Agape Review, PoetsOnline, and The Avocet, and her poem on St. Hildegard of Bingen was published in The Ekphrastic Review.