Classic Poem

The haws cling to the thorn,
Shrivelled and red;
The limbs long dead
Clutch at a leaf long torn —
It taps all day on the spikes
As the spume licks over the dikes.

The reeds creak in the dawn
By the dead pond;
Dry tongues respond
From grasses yellow and drawn;
And ever scourged by the wind,
The alders clatter and grind.

Vines furred with the frost
String from the wall:
Their bones recall
Summer leaves long lost,
Cricket and fly and bee
And their low melody.

No bird wails to the waste
Of scentless snow,
Where streaming low
The steel-blue shadows haste;
But through the hard night
The dead moon takes flight.