{{May}}

[shane_mayhem]

Say nothing
                of April -
  it is November that's cruelest -
and the cold voice of the wind
  the ice-rimmed wings that crack
against trembling dawn
                to take
  all the years of rain
       between Heaven and Earth,
  ferry-man for the winter
      who touches the lavender
  by the door,
     the sharp, tough herb
       that clings the hardest
                   to last summer's soil,
    who says,
      all the roads of memory lead here:
         a house within itself,
   a piano showing silent teeth
     a hat upon the door-nail
       shoes that have walked
    down from the mountains
  to the wet rim of the sea,
empty
  except for three grains
        of cold still sand.
  Listen to the note where summer ended,
it rings in the inner ear
     like a trumpet that once hit a note
  all the way to the hospital,
   you did it for him then,
 and all your childhood hope meant.
     Listen to the winter pull
 her long cart over the cobbled road
     as though for the last time;
  no candle lights the way through this,
      no calendars any more
because this is where time is different:
           summer is in a room far away,
    a car forever winding up the hills
     running fast past the herds of antelope
   the fossil beds in Wyoming,
   still as a picture
      quiet as the gun in its leather case,
    bright and three-dimensional,
        a souvenir looking-glass, a story-book
   from the topsail yard
     to the Uintah peaks;
 you can almost hold it in your hand,
   this rough warm thing like a stone
from the canyons.
  You had a good conversation.
   He knew the way by memory.