Autumn is here. Cats crouch and doze
indoors. Too windy out, too grey,
for pleasant wanderings. I close
the curtains early on the play
of rain on drumming windowpane,
and light the lamps, and pour some wine;
recall a year ago: the wane
of summer, and my dad's decline:
his final autumn... But I did not know,
and had I known could not have turned
the wheel back on itself, the flow
of seasons widdershins, or learned
in any other way how death
waits patiently in every breath.
