“Into October” by W.S. Merwin
Published in:
The Shadow of Sirius, 2008These must be the colors of returning
the leaves darkened by now but staying on
into the bronzed morning among the seed heads
and the dry stems and the umbers of October
the secret season that appears on its own
a recognition without a sound
long after the day when I stood in its light
out on the parched barrens beside a spring
all but hidden in a triangle of eglantine
and picked the bright berries made of that summer