The Reader

All night I sat reading a book,

Sat reading as if in a book

Of sombre pages.

It was autumn and falling stars

Covered the shrivelled forms

Crouched in moonlight.

No lamp was burning as I read,

A voice was mumbling, “Everything

Falls back to coldness,

Even the musky muscadines,

The melons, the vermilion pears

Of the leafless garden.”

The sombre pages bore no print

Except the trace of burning stars

In the frosty heaven.