Driven through by her own sword

Summer died last night, alone.

Even the ghosts huddle up for warmth.

Autumn has come to my hometown

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Friendly voices, dead and gone,

singing, Star of the country down...

(even the ghosts help raise the barn,

here, now, in my hometown)

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-when, out of the massing

that bodes and bides, in the cold west,

flew a waxwing, who froze

and died against my breast!

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And all the while, rain,

like a weed in the tide,

swans and lists,

down on the gossiping lawn,

saying, "tsk, tsk, tsk".

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I may have changed. It's hard to gauge.

Time won't account for how I've aged.

Would I could tie your lying tongue,

who says that leaving keeps you young.

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I have got no control

over my heart, over my mind.

Over the hills, the rainclouds roll.

I'll winter here, wait for a sign.

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To cast myself out, over the water,

riven like a wishbone.

You'd hardly guess

I was my own mother's daughter;

I ain't naturally given to roam.

I lay low, when I return,

and I move like a gurney

whose wheels are squeaking,

alone, here in my home,

and I laugh, when you speak of my pleasure-seeking

among the tall pines,

along the lay-lines.

Here, where the loon keens.

There, where the moon leans.

There, where I know my violent love lays down,

in a row of silent, dove-gray days.

Here, in a row of silent, dove-gray days.

Wherever I go, I am snowbound

by thoughts of him whom I would sun.

I loved them all, one by one.

Cannot gain ground, cannot outrun;

but time marches along.

You can't always stick around.

But, when the final count is done,

I will be in my hometown.

I will be in my hometown.

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