All the green trees bring  
their rings to you 
the widening 
circles of their years to you  
late and soon casting 
down their crowns into  
you at once they are gone  
not to appear 
as themselves again

O season of your own

from whom now even 
the fire has moved on 
out of the green voices 
and the days of summer 
out of the spoken 
names and the words between them  
the mingled nights the hands 
the hope the faces 
those circling ages dancing  
in flames as we see now  
afterward 
here before you

O you with no 
beginning that we can conceive of  
no end that we can foresee 
you of whom once we were made  
before we knew ourselves

in this season of our own
                                                     September 19, 2001