Rotation to Winter
Red is mostly gone, but faded yellow
maples i the air, spirals in the wind,
stars the wet ground.
Clouds serge until I can feel
the earth's rotation to winter.
Wind-messages fan from the north.
Sun behinf clouds
masquerades as a cold evening moon.
Having left this place as a girl,
I return as to a foreign land,
surprised to find
there is
one last rose of summer
bright amid the rusting brown.
But now this is an alien place.
I have no coat to stop the wind, no
way to keep the rose.
by Susan Terris
