These are the days of silver, and of gold —
the panting cold, the burst of bright on black
as coins sprout from trees, shiver, fall,
pave the streets with change.
Strange is the turn and tilt of day,
when stray, streaming, fingerling light
gleams slant against the eyes — the scold
of crows, magpies, jackdaws, gulls,
shouting the season in.

We count our birds. We read their wings. We script
stories in the scrim of puddled ice, tell tales
to ease the winter in. We sing

we had a lady, tall and fair
who spun the springing wheel for us,
who quenched our summer thirsts, who sank
her hands into the humid loam
and turned the understory. We had
a lady, warm and wise,
who bore us in her brimming arms,
who fed us all the very best
of fruit and root and flowered stem,
and if her blessing falls on us
we’ll have her like again.

The wind is thin and grey, the sky
a half–drunk seeming — the gold will pale,
the silver streak and circuit into frost, the air
will spindle into needles —
but if her blessing falls on us,
we’ll have her like again.