Put away the sundries of summer:
cover the grill, the pool, the patio swing.
Let the worms on deliquescent fruit drink
and let the crickets chant their ghastly whir

Blot out the bright matutinal blaze;
dawn climbing slow the meridian line:
the young maple, fingers blushed and wind entwined.
The buzzards ascend, their carcass razed.

From that mausoleum resounds a sepulchral canto,
Rising to the stratified clouds, like geology,
or memory of the human body.
The light, shadows, the long sheer descent.

Turn down the silent clocks, empty the void.
Autumn raps upon the door.