“To Ashes” by W.S. Merwin

All the green trees bring
their rings to you
the widening
circles of their years to you
late and soon casting
down their crowns into
you at once they are gone
not to appear
as themselves again

O season of your own

from whom now even
the fire has moved on
out of the green voices
and the days of summer
out of the spoken
names and the words between them
the mingled nights the hands
the hope the faces
those circling ages dancing
in flames as we see now
afterward
here before you

O you with no
beginning that we can conceive of
no end that we can foresee
you of whom once we were made
before we knew ourselves

in this season of our own