All Saints' Day
poem
The sky had arched
hollow, hallowed, bare
before I woke;
Light has no complaint, but lives
in shafts and lines between the clouds:
And now the dead begin
to cluster at the mind
and saints stand at their windows
golden as the dying leaves
amassed in brightness like a wound
in cold November;
eternity escaping
through the carven cracks
outruns the painter’s brush —
Bone delivers bone
unto itself, and all things live
out past the autumn, sleeping,
pierced by sudden gold.
"Bone delivers bone" is a striking line. Good stuff.
Those are ginkgo leaves! I love when they turn golden yellow and fall like snow. We have a giant ginkgo in our front yard and it's one reason I fell in love with the house 40+ years ago.