At the Edge of the Woods



Beech trees fashioning autumn dresses;

Vigorous grandedames, sewing and swaying,

Laying old lace on a grey silk sky.

Black satin crow,

Embroidered evergreens,

And a wood pigeon of velvet ribbon

Is looped by wind worried hands,

In flight, in and out of the fabric

Of the earth and the air, the cloud and the light.

And behold, a gown for our season,

Made of our days and years.

Made of escaping curtains and windows seeded with rain,

Of smoking chimney pots and sylvan shadows,

And how the grass glows gold.

A gown for she who comes white and burning before the storm,

Who comes as sudden flocks from the mountains,

Who touches us like water,

Cold at the collar and at the sleeve’s edge.

Howling her cry of pain and of release;

The pure note that is

Rehearsed a million times overhead

In the leaves.

Sea sounds are singing in

The reaches that bring winter.