Clear Melody

TREES in this November night
Are leafed with light
From street lamps, or the moon.
And you shall soon
Walk from the city to the wood
Where stood your birthplace, centuries
And centuries ago.

All moonlight, now; no snow, no nerves;
No avenues, one path that curves.

How can November thus
Be summer? fact be fabulous?
Bare boughs in leaf, dead grass in bloom?
You read the words on your own tomb,
By moonlight read the words and laugh
To read your epitaph.

While soft as a feather, soft as snow,
Or snowy moonlight on moonlit caves,
One cricket weaves the winds together.

Sleep, you are there,
Sleep, you are home.
The moonlight comb
Combs your hair.

And now you are home.
After centuries, now.
After centuries, home.

ROBERT HILLYER