Turn Of The Year Poem by Daniel Chadwick

A few leaves on once-crowded trees..
This season, like an indrawn breath.
Geese and branches patterning
clear on the pale clear sky. What's left
behind here since you changed the clocks
has seen already one hard freeze.

This season, like an in-drawn breath,
or like the gathering of flocks
who glean the field to earth and rock
where next season's green will come.

You set the clocks, then went away,
migrating to another sun.
Rays of this one pattering
in slow golden leaves to earth one by one.
This season comes to every branch and stalk,
clearing the long-spent growth of May.

(1How like us, that an(other) hour's sleep
should be the last thing you left for me.)