Acorns

Listening
to acorns fall
from the oaks
in the last light
of a late summer
day to land out of
sight on the dark
forest floor,
I wonder how
many will find
their way into
the soil to root
in secret, waiting
for spring to send
timid tendrils into
the dangerous air.
Not many, I suppose,
life being what it is,
though in a vision,
Julian of Norwich,
holding a little thing
the size of a hazelnut,
in the palm of her hand,
was told it is all that is
made and it lasts and
ever shall last because
God made it; and I think
of our own small lives
and how each life holds
everything, including
death, a new
beginning.

—Sarah Rossiter