Suddenly now the day rushes off
like redwings startled from brittle corn
still standing in the fields where I have watched
the seasons pass for almost half a century
here where all that went before has gone
the same way into the one night
where time means nothing
the leaves blowing down now in gusts
the fields mostly shorn and the skunks
waddling toward their long sleep
somewhere in the dark
I hear a walnut fall.
