Seasons roll,

Fall and Spring

From summer’s bright decline

Emerging rent by Winter

In a world run out of time.

In the beginning was the Word

She had not uttered

Whose light now fails the afternoon

In an eloquence of silence

She turned and left the room

II

So it’s strange to think of now

In terms of then

And stranger yet to wander thoughts down roads of when

When summer mornings meant mid-day outings

And the fires of July were cooled in the wet velvet runnings

Of enormous apricots

Beyond belief in the magnificence of their song

The eyes of our fathers

Were deeper than the sky

With more luster than a promise

We knew of them no lies.

Green was the smell of all touch

And touch the taste of all vision

In a hunger that knew no liquor

Yet drank till the dawn had sighed

Each day walked toward night

But the passing of the light

We never knew.

III

But tonight I see the shadows fall

And envelop the burnings of the world

As December’s crystal hues

Softly, in their flights descent

Round the vision in my breath

On this windshield

Moving

West.