December by Dane CampbellIt is December.
Here our cold Autumn reliably relieves
the unfelled timber
of its foliage, gives death to dying leaves.
Strangled by November,
that month of old age, whose quiet breath bereaves,
the still and stoic statues, the trees.
Most disremember
those few that time inexplicably reprieves,
each a snuffed ember,
the clingers-on, those death-defying leaves
that withstand November.
Death lingers on. The unfed to the limb cleaves,
of otherwise bare, still, stoic trees.
On the dawn of winter,
I am starved and strangled as a brown leaf.
But I dare not splinter,
though carved and mangled beyond belief.
Among the dead to inter,
I hang upon a branch indifferent to grief;
you, the still and stoic statue to which I freeze. 02/07/2014 Posted on 02/07/2014 Copyright © 2024 Dane Campbell
|