To Autumn Poem by MARINA GIPPS

Old sun has unloaded all of himself
like Jesus
and now its time for him
to go away

The sinewy wind knows this.
It follows the wolf in the woods,
makes the berries fall in the frost
so the grass can string them
like rosary beads.

And the clouds set in,
weep in this picture, prayerless,
fill it with grey tears
for all those years
the wealth of the season
must turn to poison

and we must drink it sacramentally
you and I,
like the sweet hemlock that flows
from our vintaged veins.