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ALL SOULS

Stars clear overhead and shot bright
as water from the hose, last ones burning
in needles of flames as long ago as August—
now we needn't hold our breath except
against the cold arriving in its increments
from the vacant angle of space.

tonight we'll pull our collars up looking
to the sleepless clouds to make our case
for everlasting in their silver undercoats
and current spanning the light-split edge
of sky—this life, some life perhaps to come...

Again it is time to offer our estimations
under an early persimmon moon and sit out
long enough to see it etch the ivy's edges
as they climb the drainspout toward another
unknown space.

Yesterday we praised
the bay laurel and lindens, daylight's ambered
twigs holding where mockers and finches
proclaimed their quick devotion to the sweet
concourse this side of everything, and we felt
sustained, reassured, knowing no love more
immeasurably given out.

That was the world—
full for a while of an old silence recast
from an evening's purple woods or dust-
colored plains of pampas grass, a slow
resident spell, similar to the harp strings splicing
the atmosphere after all the music has stopped
and you again are one of the last to leave your seat
as the auditorium dims...

The cool bronzed
breathing of the leaves, a last fusion of sun
in coral or violet after-tones over industrial roofs,
the slack and discursive fields...

The grey sorrow
we always think is coming—thumbprint
of winter and all we've let the air become...
Though here, just after 4:00 and the first wind rise,
the horizon burns briefly white, as if after all this
time we'd lost nothing across the diminishing sky.

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