Autumn

Driven through by her own sword

Summer died last night, alone

Even the ghosts

Huddled up for warmth

Autumn has come to my hometown

Friendly voices, dead and gone

Singing, Star of the country down...

(Even the ghosts help raise the barn

Here, now, in my hometown)

When, out of the massing

That bodes and bides, in the cold west

Flew a waxwing, who froze

And died against my breast!

All the while, rain

Like a weed in the tide

Swans and lists

Down on the gossiping lawns

Saying tsk tsk tsk

I may have changed. It's hard to gauge

Time won't account for how I've aged

Would I could tie your lying tongue

Who says that leaving keeps you young

I have got no control

Over my heart, over my mind

Over the hills, the rainclouds roll

I'll winter here, wait for a sign

To cast myself out

Over the water

Riven like a wishbone

You'd hardly guess

I was my own mother's daughter;

I ain't naturally given to roam

I lay low, when I return

And I move

Like a gurney

Whose wheels are squeaking

Alone, here in my home

And I laugh

When you speak of my pleasure-seeking

Among the tall pines

Along the ley-lines

Here, where the loon keens

There, where the moon leans

There

Where I know my violent love lays down

In a row of silent, dove-gray days

Here, in a row of silent, dove-gray days

Wherever I go, I am snowbound

By thoughts of him

Whom I would sun

I loved them all

One by one

Cannot gain ground

Cannot outrun;

But time marches along

You can't always stick around

But, when the final count is done

I will be in my hometown

I will be in my hometown