And A Third Autumn
       

1.

Thistle. Bramble. Stones. I crossed
over the rock. A bristling horizon,
thistle without end—a land
of brier and thorns,
and strange birds coming to me.

Strange birds—their sharp call
and summer's sting. A stony autumn,
the sky burning bright at the edges.
Still. The rain has yet to come.

In the thistle dark gold is concealed,
in the thistle strange birds call out,
in the thistle toward a bristling horizon,
weary days, like beggars, meander.

2.

Lifeless land and living heavens
a stone's breath and the wind's death
a wide space and ruins—

my insatiable youth—
what a wasted, trampled path!
What a chill our death prepares
in the future's hidden lair.

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Copyright © 2011 Annie Kantar All rights reserved
from With This Night
University of Texas Press
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission