Birch leaves lay a yellow mosaic
along the path by the lake,
the hazels are hung red
with limp fish waiting to drown.
The wind is horizontal
and the autumn light
is fading into a damp dusk.
My feet find an unexpected word
written with baroque curlicue
on the path in white paint.
A single command: Avoid!
Better, it tells me, not to hope.
Winter comes as certainly as night,
hope burns the heart in futile bonfire.
Send no rockets up, quietly
circumvent their launching site;
for every Roman candle burst
the price is grief,
writing on water the individual life.
But then we would never have flown
in reckless formations
with waxed wings dripping,
never grounded, thrown
inflammatory words back into the air,
or conjured visions, huddled,
keeping each other warm.
Though all paths lead to leaf mould,
there the debris of our lives,
those wind-blown words
that only hope believes,
become the earth
from which grow later trees.