Endsong

It’s going to be a hard winter.
Look through the almanac, look
at the coat of the caterpillar,
look in the window-well where
the cat has stockpiled mice—
fieldmice, a half dozen of them,
mingled with leaves from poplars
whose nakedness offends the wind.

Wherever you look, the portents
bear the same burden: it’s going
to be a bard winter, the lawns
will mold under the deep drifts,
the greens will thirst to death
in their dry dirt—are brown
already with a chill foresight;
look at the puffy, bundled spruce.

From “Endsong” by Robley Wilson, Jr. Poetry Magazine, October 1981