D’s Bones

The Swainson’s thrush
and western tanager have quietly
departed. Only the winter
wren occasionally lights
the somber forest.
If mild weather continues
into the fall, good fortune. But soon
the decline will be more noticeable,
leaving nothing but aching grayness
and cold rain.
It will be
time to lie
down.

(No. 99 in a series of responses to Han-shan’s Songs of Cold Mountain)

Or, as Togyu put it in 1749,

When autumn winds blow
not one leaf remains
the way it was.

(Numeric reference to Han-shan’s poem reflects the order of presentation in Burton Watson’s translation, presented as Cold Mountain, Columbia University Press, 1970.)