their blanching blooms
clear through October,
we too
may now look
a bit worse for the wear
as we hold
the last sonorous
note we'd prepared
in defiance of the muffling pall
of a silently
darkening autumn—
as if virtue consisted
in our obliviousness
to criticism
and praise and thanksgiving
in our freedom
to do the one thing
we already know
how to do
without thinking.
