We woke and the world was colder,
the season progressing steadily
toward winter— the line of trees
more shorn of green summer cover,
only the ivy persisting over thin-
skinned clover— as if the bones
of earth were chiseled finer,
our cue to take out sweaters
from the back end of the drawer—
And even the tiny moths I saw
alight upon the still-steadfast, still-
flowering clump of sage and lavender,
slowed their wings in the shadow
of the sun’s pale alabaster—
Nights grow longer; so we learn to keep
best what lasts through now and later.
In response to an entry from the Morning Porch.
OTHER POSTS IN THE SERIES
- The season turns again
- Hyperphagia
- We woke and the world was colder,
- Own
- Excerpts
- Malarkey
- I wanted the taste of bitter greens
- Grief
- Autumn
- Cleft
- Decorum
- Sibilant Ghazal
- Hokkaido
- October
- Kabayan
- Thence
- Savasana
- Life Skills
- Dear Naga Buddha,
- Notes to/on the plagiarist
- The Empress of Malcolm Square
- Prelude
- 4 Etchings
- In One and the Same Moment
- Wayang Kulit
- Exit Interview (excerpt)
- And ever
- Openwork
- Necessity
- Canción sin fin
- Pavor Nocturnus
- If only the wind now dresses the trees
- Hinge
- November
- Elegy, even after 22 years
- Fleeting
- Osteon
- Outlast
- The years teach much that the days never know*
- Thin fog, as in the corners of a tintype—
- Resist