Autumn

Driven through by her own sword,
summer died last night, alone.
Even the ghosts
huddled up for warmth.
Autumn has come to my hometown.

Friendly voices, dead and gone,
singing, Star of the country down...
(even the ghosts help raise the barn,
here, now, in my hometown)

--when, out of the massing
that bodes and bides, in the cold west,
flew a waxwing, who froze
and died against my breast!
All the while, rain,
like a weed in the tide,
swans and lists, down
on the gossiping lawns,
saying tsk tsk tsk.

I may have changed. It's hard to gauge.
Time won't account for how I've aged.
Would I could tie your lying tongue,
who says that leaving keeps you young.

I have got no control
over my heart, over my mind.
Over the hills, the rainclouds roll.
I'll winter here, wait for a sign

to cast myself
out, over the water,
riven like a wishbone.
You'd hardly guess
I was my own mother's daughter;
I ain't naturally given to roam.
I lay low, when I return,
and I move
like a gurney
whose wheels are squeaking,
alone, here in my home,
and I laugh,
when you speak of my
pleasure-seeking
among the tall pines,
along the lay-lines.
Here, where the loon keens.
There, where the moon leans.
There,
where I know my violent love lays down,
in a row of silent, dove-gray days.
Here, in a row of silent, dove-gray days.

Wherever I go, I am snowbound
by thoughts of him
whom I would sun.
I loved them all,
one by one.
Cannot gain ground,
cannot outrun;
but time marches along.
You can't always stick around.
But, when the final count is done,
I will be in my hometown.
I will be in my hometown.