Whence Cometh The Falling Leaves? Poem by Carolyn Padgett Summerlin

Whence cometh the falling leaves?
The yielded grain from glided sheaves
Whither flies the flocking geese
As Autumn's breath shakes the trees
Why runneth the hundred leaping deer
Thicket to thicket, forest to meadow clear
Why doth the squirrel scamper as he sees
The acorns, maplenuts amidst the leaves?
Whence cometh the colder drops of rain
Against the shuttered frosted window pane<
As Autumn's breath leaves a smoky train
Swirling above the skeletal brown woods.
Whence cometh repose of winter's moods? Whence cometh the Pilgrim's Pride
As they docked their Mayflower Oceanside,
And carved the church out of sturdy oak
The stainglassed windows that softly spoke
Of fathers that loved, lived and died
With their d reams buried in the countryside,
Their love descends from generation to generation
That First Thanksgiving, the founding of a nation
Why cometh the little band of brave hearts
To this wilderness, this land of new starts,
Whence cometh the forests, the fruit from this sod
The bounty, the beauty, the majesty of Fall
It all cometh from the merciful hands of God.