November

Lines repeat like branches, barely
moved in this stalled air; all
your small deaths have entered
bone into bone, fine as ice

Your patterns crystalize: the harvest
mouse throws his life
pure from his own three wounds.
You will replace his blood

with river; give us back
tears neat as pods.
What loss are you growing?
What must we give

for our drowned hair; the rainbow
in our cells; this stellar cancer
intricate as Brahms; our graves
with their stopped mouths.


(very early poem. You can tell how early because it was printed in Yankee magazine back when they actually printed poetry, under the editorship of Jean Burden who was always encouraging.
And...from the overuse of semi-colons!)