THE LAKE HOUSE IN AUTUMN

A silence in the house at summer's wake:

the last leaves fall in one night's wind,

the mice are eaten, and the cats begin

a rumbling sleep. There's nothing much at stake.

It's not quite cold enough to stoke

the furnace, and the neighbors never seem to mind

if leaves are raked. I'm staring through a blind

at less and less beside a cooling lake.

I keep forgetting that this absence, too,

must be imagined. I cannot just frown

or fill the vacancy with stately rue.

The mind is darker, deeper than a windblown

lake that tries to mirror every hue

of feeling as the dusky season takes me down.