I let the smoke out of the windows
And lift the hair from my ears.
A season of birds and reaping,
A level of light appears.
Sun lies in urns on the terrace
Like the cat on the chimney. Near
Fall stirs the curtains, narrow
Ribbons of air nip my fingers.
Warm under foot, the carpet
Reminds my skin I am here.
All things begin together:
Weather and love. The ear
Hears the earth turn; we make an adjustment
To that motion: the dip of the sphere
Into autumn, and rustling music
As the leaves are shaken away …
All things begin together,
Here, as I shake, at the day’s
Beginning, with pleasure and fear,
Numb with night’s dip and turning
When I weathered love-in-a-sphere,
Like the siamese cat on the chimney
Mysterious, now, as a vessel,
An ark, or a precious container,
She is smoothing, sunning her fur.
I stand at the window and shiver
As the smoke wreathes out of my hair.
All things begin together:
Weather and love and fear
And the color of leaves, and pleasure.
The waxwings come to the ash trees
That rustle until they are bare.
The birds will wing from the weather,
While I stand, still as the harvest,
With the sound of the fall in the air.
Leave a Reply