Given to the frost these autumn colors

long years awaited, months to build & blaze

their gorgeous warning through a countryside

our children will not know. Eternal days

gutter like tapers toward aphelion:

time now for winter shelter, winter ways.

Given to the frost our fragile cities

bright with banners, dance, & brilliant song

offered up in sunlight. Wine flowed gladly

here amid these fountains, where a strong

northern gust whips whitecaps cold as snow

sifting through a season decades long.

Given to the frost vain thoughts of plenty:

uncounted loaves & fishes, crumbs to spare

for all who ride this rock into the exile

our fickle star requires. No mystics there

will multiply a harvest—or create

one extra drop of water, breath of air.

Given to the frost our lost & stateless,

grasshoppers of a summer fading fast

as faces in the nightmares we'll deny

next morning to each other. Past is past,

the dry leaves whisper, drifting deep across

our hatchways locked & sealed & safe at last.