Sonnet #271

The stone fruits in autumn are an exhaustion

I can understand: They pushed so hard

Into the light, reached every root until exertion

swelled into the bloom of life, a hundred new words

hang from every limb for weeks, and then they break

The wind blows, the dry times come, the storms

And the sun, itself, yawns apart, leans back;

What else can be done but decay a little, let the worms

among the fallen leaves, and let the leaves

we lost become the soil we eat, devouring self

And devouring those we welcome as thieves;

From the outside, we are sleeping, that's what they tell

But what no one sees is roots reaching, ever creating

The stonefruits and I look snowstorm still, roots reaching