Page 13 - Contrast1971Fall

Two words

fall,
They cut down the elms
And trimmed the shrubbery
This summer,
But out in the country
They have trees blooming
And hawks flying --
Reduced to eating groundhogs
Run over by cars--
Trying to deny the fact
That shortly
We will have a barren hall
For our inhabitance.
But now we live in Hereot,
Shortly after the beginning of the feud
And soon there will be steaming smoking timber;
But exactly now you can stand and watch yet still escapethe heat
So come and see! The world is all afire!
The fire comes from somewhere within,
No little Jack comes painting;
And there is a fire within, too.
It consumes my mind
And blurs it with its smoke
Forcing me out among the burning bushes
Where I can hide and not be seen for what I am.
Self-consuming, we look toward the winter,
And there is a curve in the line of hawk's wings
That says it will not be long.
And we grasp desperately to seecircles in their paths,
But there are many swoops.
And yet they will return next year to perhaps this very place.
But who knows what the ravagesof winter
And men in the discomfort of cold will do to us.
We know there will be new trappings in spring
And even new members to replace the dead