Nothing Gold Can Stay

November 9, 2012

Written by Marykate OMalley, mother of three wonderful children, Gladwyne, PA

Gladwyne playground

I often think of autumn as nature’s time to show off. It’s like she is out to wow us in all her majesty and beauty. The leaves – all orange, and red and yellow. And then the wind will kick up and send leaves swirling and falling like confetti and suddenly I feel like I am standing in the center of a snow globe or gliding down Wall Street during a ticker tape parade.

My guy, loving the leaves.

And it is fleeting. I took these pictures only a couple of weeks ago and already, the branches are bare, and clean. Even without leaves trees are so elegant, their limbs like the long swan like arms of a ballerina. I often think of the poem “Nothing Gold Can Stay” by Robert Frost this time of year. And every time I pass a particularly spectacular tree I remind myself to slow, and enjoy it, for in a few weeks the gold will be gone.

Nothing Gold Can Stay

by Robert Frost

Nature’s first green is gold,

Her hardest hue to hold.

Her early leaf’s a flower;

But only so an hour.

Then leaf subsides to leaf.

So Eden sank to grief,

So dawn goes down to day.

Nothing gold can stay.

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2 Comments »

Anne Schenendorf
on November 15, 2012 10:18 pm
MaryKate, these are such beautiful words. I was misty before I ever got to this beloved poem. It could be the time we are in right now, me on the eve of my little guys’ second birthdays. This made me cry. I am grateful to be left with these sentiments of yours and Frost. It makes me truely present in these moments…
Marykate Wurster
on November 21, 2012 11:16 pm
Anne so beautiful. And so true. XXOO