Autumn scowls as summer shudders.
Its herald, howl-hounded, scudders round the chimney pots
And up beyond the level of the trees.
No clean-cut, sun-sated, roast-tasted crop this year;
Harvest time the wheat clung reluctant
To the soggy earth, fish on a line,
This stubbornness its only sign
Of life — “Oh bread of which we eat, by which we are” —
Ripped untimely from the womb,
Reaped coldly to a flapping wind.
I flee from room to room,
Flee the stillness that the chill-wind gnaws,
Flee the aching chain of thought,
Flee the union that the gods comprise: “Give, Control, Sympathize,”
Retaining however the quintessential grain,
The miniscule, yet causal crumb:
The hard capacity to complain,
To suffer, yet remain aloof,
To be and not to be: die querulously
And yet live numb, beyond reproof.