Autumn Fire

By Fr. Dwight Longenecker

This morning’s Autumn sun came slanting through
the trees of burnished orange and flaming red.
Crimson and gold fire flashed against the blue,
bronze and vermillion gashed, and nature bled--
as if the whole world was ablaze with blood.

So it seemed as we drove to school that day:
the children laughing and oblivious;
innocent and ignorant in their way,
of insig…