For a long day and a night we read the names: Many thousand brothers fallen in the green and distant land . . . Sun going south after the autumn equinox. By night the vast moon: "Moon of the Falling Leaves"; Our voices hoarse in the cold of the first October rains. And the long winds of the season to carry our words away. The citizens go on about their business. By night sleepers condense in the houses grown cloudy with dreams. By day a few come to hear us and leave, shaking their heads Or cursing. On Sunday the moral animal prays in his church. It is Fall; but a host of dark birds flies toward the cold North. Thousands of dense black stones fall forever through the darkness under the earth. Used with the permission of Copper Canyon Press, P.O. Box 271, Port Townsend, WA 98368-0271, www.cc.press.org | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...FROST AT MIDNIGHT by SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE TWILIGHT AT THE HEIGHTS by CINCINNATUS HEINE MILLER AH, BIND MY HANDS by JOHANNA AMBROSIUS A SLEEPLESS NIGHT by ALFRED AUSTIN THE COMING OF THE SNOW by MARION L. BERTRAND TO A DISCIPLE OF WILLIAM MORRIS by WILFRID SCAWEN BLUNT THE CONSOLATION OF PHILOSOPHY: BOOK 3 by ANICIUS MANLIUS SEVERINUS BOETHIUS UNIVERSAL GOOD, THE OBJECT OF THE DIVINE WILL; AND EVIL by JOHN BYROM |