EQUINOX

Branches have blackened in the wind, igniting,

from edge of night a bird is calling shrill,

could the Spring rumbling from far off sound frightening

to virgin lands clear, timid, wistful, still?

Familiar lands, from states wakeful, dreaming,

where barrenness of fields smears umber brown,

till my life tilts, inclines, and sunk, I’m seeming

to know their joys, who don’t yet know their own.

Then half and half the light and shade striating

like the palm, dancing o’er deep standing water,

hoping I’ll find a lament, alternating

what crystallized my fortune till of late,

hoping to fear no nightmare frights, which falter,

when who-as-may-be holds my lit-up fate.