Come Then, November

Come then, November, if you must.
Dark and lovely, shadowed with earth.
Fill me empty,
Stark as night as the bird lifts
And shadow spills forth,
As a stream, as a shutter--

We walk the mountain.
The snow falls steady and pebbled.
Moses opens his mouth
To taste, to touch, to feel the shock of cold.

My father, complicated
Like the pattern of bare trees through
The woods- simple like my discovery
Of a heart-shaped leaf in the gray pool of cement
Earlier this morning--
Falls behind

Sweat covers my brow, cold in my fingers
Heat crawling at my back.

I long, yes long
To live in these deep woods
On this cold mountain, my heart split
Wide by the silence that feeds and the water
Stream, foot path, stonewall, gold of fallen leaves.

The sorrow of hands that will pale and cease to be,
The joy of birds lifting, diving, swirling in unison
In the blue-gray bruise of sky--
The snow growing thick, a yearning,
As Christmas passes into new year
And light begins its slow return.

We turn once more and
Are forced outward--