Rolled on surging roots, the dead Atlantic sailors rise and fall, the Gloucestermen come safe to shore. A button on a bright gray shroud, a patch of blue, love clasped with grief there was a time such things survived but now all death is drained of life. At the world s core lies a lake where slaughters stream and pale roots drink. The thick remains of sin are coursing through October trees to splatter red New England s sky with leaves. November Off Winter Harbor, Christmas Cove, Fairhaven, Wellfleet now the cold gray sea turns back against the shore.
Hard combers rake between the rocks for bottles, paper, bits of glass.
Angry whitecaps scour the beach and foam among the driftwood dams. New England s cold November sets bare ruined oaks against gray skies. A thousand leafless crosses weave among the trees. No hue remains. This is the killing time between the crime and judgment, act and pain, the pregnant days when we pretend that consequences will miscarry witness perjured, time suborned until at last the winter breaks, sweeping down the western hills across Vermont, New Hampshire, Maine to fill the valleys, close the woods, entomb the cities, still the seas.