AUTUMN EVENING
In the late day shining cobwebs trailed from my fingers
I could not see the far ends somewhere to the south
gold light hung for a long time in the wild clematis
called old man’s beard along the warm wall
now smoke from my fire drifts across the red sun setting
half the bronze leaves still hold to the walnut trees
marjoram joy of the mountains flowers again
even in the light frosts of these nights
and there are mushrooms though the moon is new
and though shadows whiten on the grass before morning
and cowbells sound in the dusk from winter pastures
— W.S. Merwin, from his book The Compass Flower (1977), and found in the collection Migration: New & Selected Poems, (2005, Copper Canyon Press), used by permission of the publishers.
Copyright © 1977 by W. S. Merwin.
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Photo “Autumn Clematis” by photographer Liz West used under Creative Commons license CC BY 2.0. The original image can be found here.