Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, AUTUMN SONG, by THOMAS MCGRATH


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

AUTUMN SONG, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: Autumn has emptied heaven of its birds
Last Line: And crows talk hoarsely in the frozen wood
Subject(s): Autumn; Change; Migration; Nature; Seasons; Fall


Autumn has emptied heaven of its birds
And stretched a silence on the loud sea.
Gone is the last leaf and the last flower,
And all the gauds of summer are undone.

Winter cuts off our feet. But we must dance
In Spring's conspiracy of circumstance:
Swallows sickling air's invisible grass
Sketch hieroglyphs that translate at a glance
To greenest meaning.
The sun, love's looking-glass,
Summer, that stokes the furnace of the bee,
Honey all nature in one grand romance --
The ambience of consanguinity
Hurls its huge myth around the world at me.

But now the sports and sunny shows are done.
A deadflower clock ticks out a year of seed.
The season's losses hide the summer road,
And crows talk hoarsely in the frozen wood.


Used with the permission of Copper Canyon Press, P.O. Box 271, Port Townsend, WA
98368-0271, www.cc.press.org




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