Perhaps autumn
is not the making of color
but the surrender of green.

The leaf lets go
of what it no longer needs
and suddenly
what was hidden
becomes visible.

Gold was there.
Red was there.
Orange was there.

All summer
they waited beneath
the green.

Perhaps this is
what surrender does to the soul.

It does not make us
into someone new.

It removes
what has been covering
who we were created to be.

And sometimes
when God begins
to take away
what we thought was our beauty,

He is only revealing
what His grace
had been growing
underneath.