How have we come to where we are;
how have we turned down silent rivers,
drifting with the clarity
of blade and leaf and water.
It was Winter, as I recall,
still battling with Spring,
still throwing up mad battlements
that bleed to flood the streets by noon.
It was Winter, but it could be Spring,
when we began to lose
our Summer, when Autumn loomed,
when leaves that had not opened, browned,
mosquitos seemed long-dead
that had not buzzed around my crown.
And here we drift, a leaf on stream,
where frost is cracking at our skin.
Here where Summer cicaedas are drowned,
where cherry pits are sinking down.
Our stream is shrinking to a creek
and soon a trickle, drying to stones.
So there we’ll sit
or sit there now,
and where has Autumn gone,
for last that I recall,
the yellow wheat was being harvested
the geese had just begun to fly
and now the Spring is knocking at our door.