The Season of the Soul

The Season of the Soul

Why am I cast down and despondently sad
When I long to be happy and joyous and glad?
Why is my heart heavy with unfathomable weight
as I try to escapethis soul-saddened state?
I ask myself often -
"What makes life this way,
Why is the song silenced in the heart that way gay"?
And then with God's help it all becomes clear,
The SOUL has its Seasons
just the same as the year -
I too must pass through life's autumn of dying,
A desolate period of heart-hurt and crying,
Followed by winter in whose frostbitten hand
My heart is as frozen as the snow-covered land -
Yes, man too must pass through the seasons God sends,
Content in the knowledge that everything ends,
And oh what a blessing to know there are reasons
And to find that our soul must, too, have its seasons -
Bounteous Seasons and Barren Ones, too,
Times for rejoicing and times to be blue,
But meeting these seasons of dark desolation
With strength that is born of anticipation
That comes from knowing that "autumn-time sadness"
Will surely be followed by a "Springtime of Gladness".

by Helen Steiner Rice