Hal Borland

Summer is a promissory note signed in June, its long days spent and gone before you know it, and due to be repaid next January.

The ultimate wisdom which deals with beginnings, remains locked in a seed. There it lies, the simplest fact of the universe and at the same time the one which calls faith rather than reason.

A snowdrift is a beautiful thing - if it doesn't lie across the path you have to shovel or block the road that leads to your destination.

October is the fallen leaf, but it is also a wider horizon more clearly seen. It is the distant hills once more in sight, and the enduring constellations above them once again.

Summer ends, and Autumn comes, and he who would have it otherwise would have high tide always and a full moon every night.

April is a promise that May is bound to keep.

No winter lasts forever; no spring skips its turn.

Man is wise and constantly in quest of more wisdom; but the ultimate wisdom, which deals with beginnings, remains locked in a seed. There it lies, the simplest fact of the universe and at the same time the one which calls forth faith rather than reason.

A woodland in full color is awesome as a forest fire, in magnitude at least, but a single tree is like a dancing tongue of flame to warm the heart.

You can't be suspicious of a tree, or accuse a bird or a squirrel of subversion or challenge the ideology of a violet.

Knowing trees, I understand the meaning of patience. Knowing grass, I can appreciate persistence.

If you would know strength and patience, welcome the company of trees.

Year's end is neither an end nor a beginning but a going on, with all the wisdom that experience can instill in us.