When words of comfort elude me, poetry often comes to my aid.

                                              'The Autumn Equinox'

The Autumn Equinox has gone,
Greens & reds & browns & fawn
Leaf-woven carpets strew the ground,
A transformation so profound.
Longer nights & shorter days
Affect our lives in subtle ways.
"Mists of mellow fruitfulness"
As harvest time our tables bless.
Birds fly south on beating wing,
Returning home once more to sing
To other ears, their songs familiar,
Sung so true & sounding clearer?
Shall we survive the closing year
Apparently so bleak, so drear?
With 'winter weeds' in cupboards waiting,
Summer's warmth is fast abating.
Stock the larder, cook the fruit,
For hunger doth our form transmute
And once transmuted, what are we?
Enveloped by a reverie
Of darkened dreams, of cold & shadow,
Spoiléd grain not fit to winnow.
Wind-blown we are nought but chaff,
The stuff of 'when', an epitaph,
But think no thoughts that hint of ending,
Seasons' cycles ever wending,
Draw us from an impotence
Imposed by cold's indifference.
'Lead us forward, kindly light',
Lest we remain embalmed by night.
                                                       (Nigel Paterson, September 2016)