THE trees in trouble because of
autumn,
And scarlet berries falling from the bush,
And all the myriad houseless
seeds
Loosing hold in the wind’s insistent
push
Moan softly with autumnal
parturition,
Poor, obscure fruits extruded out of light
Into the world of shadow,
carried down
Between the bitter knees of the
after-night.
Bushed in an uncouth ardour, coiled
at core
With a knot of life that only bliss can
unravel,
Fall all
the fruits most bitterly into earth
Bitterly into corrosion bitterly
travel.
What is it internecine that is
locked,
By very fierceness into a quiescence
Within the rage? We shall not
know till it burst
Out of corrosion into new
florescence.
Nay, but how tortured is the
frightful seed
The spark intense within it, all without
Mordant corrosion gnashing and
champing hard
For ruin on the naked small
redoubt.
Bitter, to fold the issue, and make
no sally;
To have the mystery, but not go forth;
To bear, but retaliate nothing,
given to save
The spark in storms of corrosion, as seeds
from
the north.
The sharper, more horrid the
pressure, the harder
the heart
That saves the blue
grain of eternal fire
Within its quick, committed to hold and
wait
And
suffer unheeding, only forbidden to
expire.