The most vivid thing in sight is my dead front lawn, which glows with a golden light, but even that will soon be gone. Acorn woodpeckers are chattering their good-nights, and more cicadas are buzzing, joined by a few crickets. Evenings are abbreviated now, and grow more so. I listen to autumn approach and think of the early spring when next an evening will be this long.
Sunday Verse
Cycles
by Don Paterson
Today, if you listen, you can hear the rough breath
of the early harrows, the human rhythm sing
in the deep ingathered stillness of the earth,
the strong Earth rising in its early Spring...
The word is old, but never seems outdated
and every year arrives like something new,
though it has come so often. Always anticipated,
though not once did you catch it. It caught you.
Even the old leaves of the wintered oak
seem in this late light, some future hue.
The winds exchange a word in their own tongue.
The leafless trees are black, and yet the horse-dung
heaped up in the fields, a richer black.
Each hour grows younger as it passes through.
