Autumn swept through the hushed streets
Like a shooting star
Setting the trees ablaze.

The words took shape,
Restless birds beating with their wings
Against the sealed fortress of your teeth and
You parted your lips
But feathers turned to dust
And all that emerged was silence.
Colors tasted sharper, vivid with cold.

On the church steps
Under the darkening sky among
Gray steeples and gray footfalls
Of tolling bells, you were carved
From stone. Inhaling smoke,
The night crowned you king
With a garland of ice.

Spring was endured.
Light through the windowpane
Music caught in a doorway.

Blue water and fireflies of dust:
In the falling rose of
Summer dawn
Shadows are sharp, laughter
Even sharper.

And the years piled up in a corner
Softly, like snow.