Intelligent evening,
The fire-tempered branches lean straight in to me.
The woods have thinned to valleys and rocks,
Brown and orange suffuses the green.
The leaves are all leaving for the light now
And falling back on black mirroring streams
And on meadows clear enough to receive them,
Alive enough for ghosts
And carrying such wisdom the boughs keep their pride as
they bow.
Nothing here wastes a moment of its life
Or resists death's tender dissolving embrace.
Gold ferns seem older and firmer than I am
Sensing the smoke from my kind.