What hierarchy of love and choice
shall have exacted it of us,
that to the shame of all our yearning
the body goes foul on its bones, beyond
its own or any pardon?
The sky already is quivering
with snow, and I think how it was
all summer the leaves of the McIntosh
were green as I have imagined ice
at the hearts of glaciers to be green,
while in July there were times
when, about to sleep, I might have sworn
that by morning the lawns would be stiff with frost,
the calendulas collapsed on their stems,
petals corollas of golden ice;
might equally have sworn
that in August one dawn I awakened
to a blizzard--though it was only
a swarming of white butterflies at a dead mole
in the grass. All summer
and well into the fall we worked
in the old orchard cutting apple wood,
three cords of it split and stacked
and just in time. Now, yet only October,
snow storms at the edges of the lawn.
I close the door,
light up the first fire of the year,
and outside the weathers are gathering.
JOHN ENGELS
From House and Garden, University of Notre Dame Press, 2001
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