Someone has been tearing up the autumn,
Its ripped leaves ripple across the road
Flip liked hinged cards in the moist grass.
The rain-varnished houses vanish in smoke,
Drift on the air like blown-out breath in gusts:
So we forget frog-ponds and nut-gatherers,
Remember instead that weathers for us
Who know too well its intentions, wind-keen,
Intense as the first frost hardening
Stubble grass to a tacky ice-blanket
Listen! In bed we hear the swollen trees totter,
Dropsical-limbed, murmuring outside the window
Like Catherines insistent ghost-voice
"Let me in, let me in!"
