On through the darkening of the seeds and the bronze
   equinox
I remember the brightness of days in summer
too many years ago now to be counted
the cotton-white glare floating over the leaves
I see that it was only the dust in one sunbeam
but I was a child at the time

I hear our feet crossing the porch
and then the glass door opening
before we are conducted through the empty rooms of the
   house
where we are to live

that was on a day before I was nine
before the lake and the water sloshing in the boat
and what we heard about refugees
and before Billy Green explained to me about sex
and I saw my first strip mine
and before the war
and before the sound of the train wheels under me
when the leaves were still green
before the word for autumn
that was before Ching and Gypsy
and the sun on the kitchen table
with the window open
before the deaths by bombing
and by sickness and age and by fire and by gas
and by torture
and before the scratched varnish of the study hall
and before the camps
and coming to Conrad and Tolstoy

it was before the deaths of schoolchildren
whom I had known and whom I heard of
and before looking out into the trees after dark
from the window of the splintery unlit chemistry lab
into the scent of the first fallen leaves