Pause.

Let the apple ripen
on the branch
beyond your need
to take it down.
Let the coolness
of autumn
and the breathing,
blowing wind
test its adherence
to endurance,
let the others fall.
Wait longer
than you would,
go against yourself,
find the pale nobility
of quiet that ripening
demands,
watch with patience
as the silhouette emerges
and the leaves fall,
see it become
a solitary roundness
against a greying sky,
let winter come
and the first
frost threaten,
and then wake
one morning
to see the breath
of winter
has haloed
its redness
with light.

David Whyte. From “Winter Apple.” Pilgrim.

 

Let things ripen and then fall.
Force is not the way at all.
Just let go and we will see
The way to do is to be.

From Tao Te Ching. Trans. Witter Bynner. Laurence Cole.