Smoking My Pipe At The Window Poem by David McLansky

The final leaves are stripped away,
Streaming Westward, swept at play;
Birds sit on their barren perch
Like nervous widows prim at church.

My sky is now of tangled wires;
I see the churchyard steepled spire;
I burrow deeper in my nest,
Spilling ashes on my vest.

A cold wind blows and shakes the trees
Standing barren of their leaves;
It shakes the birds from off their perch,
It sends them Southward o'er the church;

I sit and watch the winter weather
Defeat the leaves and rustle feather;
I must sit and hibernate,
So I smoke my pipe and calmly wait.