autumn makes success and failure
look like what they always were, that is,
moments on the line of time, nothing more,
each holding its overfullness of good and bad--
it casts time out like seed in the hand,
like broken shells marking tide-lines at the shore,
life-full and empty both, the twist
of things that can be felt and seen, their core
aspects as blind and hidden as a lintel-less door.
the lie of spring and summer, that what's known fits
with what is seen and touched, is over,
and autumn comes in private, its touch no grander
than one's own unknowable touch, no surer
than one's own face when looked at in the mirror.