For all the great thoughts I have read
For all the deep books I have studied
None has brought me nearer to Spirit
Than a walk beneath shimmering leaves
Golden red with the fire of autumn
When the air is crisp
And the sun a pale eye, watching.
I am a scholar of the senses
A theologian of the tangible.
Spirit touches me and I touch Spirit
Each time I lift a leaf from my path
A thin flake of fire golden red
Still warm from the breath that made it.

Steven Charleston, “Scholar of the Senses,” in Spirit Wheel: Meditations from an Indigenous Elder (Minneapolis, MN: Broadleaf Books, 2023), 22.