Autumnal

The knowledgeable geese have fled.
The sun is cold now and oblique.
The leaves beneath the trees are dead.

The clear air tightens like a fist,
and blades of grass go singly stiff
in separate focuses of frost.

The air’s so clear you draw your breath
in pain at last. Cold certainty
dilates the heart; and it is Death

whistling for wind that you have heard.
Now do your reveries of Heaven
scatter everywhere like birds?