Late October’s pale light, as if in a dream.
It is dying down, falling off the bare rock of the hills, sinking
into the layers of limestone, while in the real world
beer-drinking men unknowingly repeat words of old poets.
The wind is chasing leaves with unusual slowness, this quietude
exceeds all expectation and all hope. Through the slightly
open door of the “Dark Lady’s Place” I am watching funerary preparations. Only the river rebels
behind the causeway, behind the escarpment. Only the gold trim
on the gravediggers’ uniforms resists. When they are done, they will put away
the faded standards to walk over to the banks of the river
to collect signs, to pull up the ropes. The last ferry of the year
is moving along. I refuse to yield to persuasion. I do not
take advantage of any opportunities. No “beam of light” falls
any longer on “those other things.” Bald elevations have been completely
cleared of any glitter while they, semi-naked, sit
on a half-grey meadow as “future aviators”, testing with their
teeth the quality of bottle caps and of invisible coins. They
are a page reproduced from an old encyclopedia, a series of affirmations,
an overheard dusk. O yes, “even if order
were possible, there would be too much of it.”