to him now as its ringed
wood to an old tree, fi rm
and of the essence
and utterly remote
from the present quick
movements of the leaves, whereas
from the most recent
of a varied assortment
of misjudgments in the life
the pain is as keen
as it is familiar, joining
the life's quite particular
griefs that, subsiding of course
in time, run fresh nevertheless
as when, years back,
they arose, while it is now, now
with the fi rst cold wind
of the fall blowing
down the empty road
that he's walking, one more
aging man, lights
from the house windows
piercing now here now there
the wind-roughed trees,
the fi rst leaves
to be torn loose in the season
skidding wildly past him,
he gaining the hilltop,