I
The plaza was filled with crows and red light. Couples walked arm in arm with mescal cups, Under a low marigold sun.
Streets became rivers of sandalwood and shadows,
Where children with wooden puppets staged a tragic scene.
By the cathedral,
Lovely graves were decorated with candles, amaranth seeds and honey, Leading a slow procession to night.
In these high villages before winter,
Our fate was well placed in the wind’s hands,
As cicadas spoke liturgies under golden leaves of an ancient sun.
From this ledge of blooming stars – All summer, it was fall.
Among dark torches of cryptomerias, Mountains tilted over a falling arc of the lark,
And hard clay roads followed into a remote time.
Bells came over Santuario de Las Lajas In soft voices of grey and white terns –
It was only a premonition of what time might remain.
From the beginning – With no destination,
We watched the light fade in the cry of every bird.
II
It cannot be changed, This caravan of dusk –
This rosary of completed heavens Stalling over clasped hands.
Under autumn elms
Our ancestors rocked in a swollen boat of night.
It was a time where we could no longer focus – A caesura in the mind –
Eternity arriving on the finite wheel of stopped clocks.
It cannot be changed, This human myth –
This fallen summer of luminous youth Held in the nerve’s yellow torch –
This uncertain glitter of the atom –
This drunken flame of multiple worlds – This elegant end.
Still calculations of twilight came back over a reddening canyon, Painting our faces with an aging ‘now’.
In the closing streets,
There was a dust of chrysanthemums Littering histories in fallen gold –
As we watched the light fade in the cry of every bird.
III
Filling dusk’s chiaro cup –
Skies turned to shades of mountain snow:
Keppel prints of ocean in verdigris slate and dry herbs: Residual images covering more than one life.
From the beginning,
We were silhouettes made of fire and ash, Where nothing could be changed.
Under a low marigold sun, With no destination,
Our fate was well placed in the wind’s hands, Where from a ledge of blooming stars –
All summer it was fall,
And we watched the light fade in the cry of every bird.