I enter the rose and glow under skies double-dyed gray.
Previous colors will keep fading—
golden club and grazing geese, sweet clematis,
pickerelweed, sheep laurel, inkberry—
into thin opinions of darkness. The scandal of autumn.
Now, nothing but walking through
each maple's similar branches. Now, nothing
but standing in hushed rooms of sand
with shifty light and its conflict. I hasten to keep listening
to the breaking blue distance, hearing its lessons.
