Before the fire before the coming darkness, the feast:
            the donning & shedding of vestments:
                        the happy funeral of autumn,
                        the wine-gold sun liquid in the hollow,
                        each evening walk a sharing of the cup,
                        a stroll in Galilee where the beauty is
                                    in summing up, in gathering

                        of the year’s new past. And the farewell light,
                        so easy to construe the fable written in it
                        of a noble death, assumption easy as falling
                        asleep for a quick nap with dusk.
And with the trees relieved
of their burden of color, what was

hidden as sin, you see, you see
the lay of the land,
as survivors

see us in time, naked
as winter trees, what held us upright.