A Grace in Death

There is a beauty in death.

There is a grace in death which life can never know.

Do you see only that the lips of summer grow

Inflamed and shrivel up?-

That the stark black teeth of winter

Glower through?

I see lawns from which the brazen currents flow,

And pour into the ditches of the road,

And send a yellow foam flying in the air

Like an early golden snow.

Such beauty only comes from death.

It is life that from the maple drips

Like molten amber in the slant of autumn sun;

And life that from the sumac bleeds,

And life that burns

Where woodbines run their fiery lips

Along the wire fences.

The ruffling hand of death has made

Silver disorder in a garnered field.

And death has robbed the runnel of its shade,

And choked it with a scale of yellow leaves,

And left its surface shattered and annealed

With an inverted cloud-ribbed sky.

Death has stripped the forest of its flesh.

And stitched its naked ribs and dry

With wires of a solar glow.

There is a grace in death which life can never know.