The leaves alight with morning rain fall
straight like skimming stones thrown
wrong light as our names like our lives
they did not have too far to fall
On the morning air your soul floats
over the frost newly alone leaves
a scattered gritty rainbow reaching
for the one color it can’t contain
Blue soul blue sky blue frost
like all the memories of laughter
Like hoarfrost, when it comes, comes through stillness
This arrival changes the appearance of only things
Still enough to have always been there
Frost flourishes in the shade like flowers in the sun–
the gain may be temporary but isn’t the temporary
gain all that can be measured and for frost after all
isn’t the temporary a permanence itself? External
conditions set it stony and sharp, a marker
of the cold we feel—things being different
it might be the drop of dew in which
you glimpse the moon you’d otherwise miss
The half moon rides high in the ninth hour of morning.
The leaves on the ground are raising their hands
As if they all have the answer
To a question I am not ready to ask.
Through this small city most of the river is submerged
But I see it just past the fire station emerge like the ground
Hog nobody was waiting on and sniff the grass and its first
Frost. Then it dives back under a chunk of rock and
The express hotel beyond. Standing on that same grass,
Listening to its reminders, I almost reach down
To touch the silvered signature, but don’t. I know it will
Not be the last frost I see. But if it were
Would I want the thaw of the first and last
Of anything on my hands? Nor will
This memory melt, nor river run over.
Translations from the English 