A Reminiscence
Held in a late season
At a shifting of worlds,
In the golden balance of autumn,
Out of love and reason
We made our peace;
Stood still in October
In the failing light and sought,
Each in the other, ease
And release from silence,
From the slow damnation
Of speech that is weak
And falls from silence.
In the October sun
By the green river we spoke,
Late in October, the leaves
Of the water maples had fallen.
But whatever we said
In the bright leaves was lost,
Quick as the leaf-fall,
Brittle and blood red.
For Kenneth Rexroth, 1950
Richard O. Moore, “A Reminiscence” from Writing the Silences. Copyright © 2010 by Richard O. Moore. Reprinted by permission of University of California Press. Permission conveyed through Copyright Clearance Center, Inc.
Source:
Writing the Silences
(University of California Press, 2010)