Here the earth is rusted by November
all the greenery grown dry

Leaves wave a final fragile
shake and the prairie grows golden hair

The landscape, open now, no pretenses
just a hand-me-down wardrobe for earth

Soon a spool of crystals will weave
a quilt of white over the russet ground

A poem has a mission something like fall
to be open, to see fragile mystery

To accept whiteness as a cover
not as an end to words

To leave space for the return
of the first leaf shadows of spring