Entering the afterglow of the year,
reading in candlelight at 5 p.m.
among the sinews of trees
where the hawks have nested
and the owls perched,
the wind a cold basket
carrying lost souls
back to me again
with all their flaws
and kindnesses intact,
and as I did as a child,
I feel the touch of kin.
Darker now, a comfort.
The wind turns up the light of the stars.
—with a line from "Rain Moving In," by John Ashbery
