THREE FOR ANOTHER WINTER
There is a short time
When beauty and bravery seem enough –
Before the bracken browns
And curls like a snarled lip,
Before the grass withers
And the flocks grow thin,
Before the wise have nothing more to say,
And the boasting grows more foolhardy.
–
Windless green valley
Golden in low cloud.
Leaves let go.
The year ripples
Dark and light,
Its slow thoughts
Swimming then falling
Into deeper silence.
Upon a lake
That is not a lake
Rests a boat
That is not a boat.
–
Mountains fall
Forests fall
Before the cold of it
And the roar
Of its whiteness.
—
