you might as well know
that i love you
and the sun and moon
are paired lamps
with dimming bulbs
lighting the robe-like cloth
of autumn

where the waves
of ancient legend
slumber, cold and still,
and your shadow has fallen
across my aging dreams,
calmer than all my thinking
more gentle than my philosophy
more obstinate and old

vague in the heights
an echo is calling
beyond the bitter smile
of the autumn leaves:
if you have no crutch,
then throw away your crutch.

the face of time
grows wrinkled
and a voice whispers: after the fourth season,
there will be no fifth, until
nimbly as a pair of butterflies,
we awaken from the wind