Chill

I thought of myself as a walnut
Hung above fallen leaves,
Desperately clinging and jerking
At the edge of a hollow wind.

I counted the leaves below me,
Scuffling and grating together.
I feared lest my withered stem

Should drop me too soon upon them.

The hollow wind played music,
Running over the branches.
The sapless chords of the branches

Whined a shrunken, glimmering tune.

The moon with a hump-backed shoulder
Shook a cloud off as though it were water,
And her light dripped down like water

Over the crackling leaves.

And shadows rose from the tree-trunks,
Cocking their legs and their ankles,
Dancing a dance of snapped elbows,

Distorting the beds of the leaves.

The owls flew shrieking above them,
Field-mice, their long tails twisted,
Ran like an army of ants

Gnawing and nudging each other.

And the wind played cymbals and tubas
To the beat of a tarantella,
Rocking in broken circles,

Chaining the tops of the tree.

And I was the kettle-drum tapping,
Tap-tapping my shell on the branch,
Terribly pulled and contorted,

Fearing the dance of the shadows.

Then there came to me the vision of a hepatica
Standing thinly out of a mould of Winter leaves,
Star-white, calling Good-morning to a soft sky.
Gently swayed the white hepatica,

Drinking the wet mould.

I felt the roots streaming through it,

I felt the moisture rising into the white petals.

I saw the sun reach down and answer the bright hepatica.

I loosened my stem and fell -- fell --
Into blackness,

For the cloud had re-captured the moon.