So late in the lengthening year that even in this desert
Nearly all photosynthesis had quit, including poetry's
Equivalent, the praise within the lament, it went. O what
Made fatuous sunbeams toil to break earth's sleep
At all? They did not toil for thee. They struck, and the rest
Was always over with, not within, not without, rash profits
Skimmed off just before impending loss. I have studied
The many artifiscientific practices of prediction, anecdotal,
Magical, devotional, probabilistic, self-fulfilling, sly,
From a distance, mostly, being fascinated but incompetent
Apprentice to that sorcery. Reduction is stronger
Than truncation, wrote the contrarian cosmologist,
To which I would ignorantly add, truncation results
From reduction, slow, cyclical, or sudden, so that this year's lament
Peeled like petals, fell as today's stunned sun shower
Of wasted leaves to sprinkle this windless morning
In a dry yard in December, all dropping from the single tree stayed
Dark and handsome bronze to the last possible hour.
Lament lay in near perfect circle, a shuffled, layered, pleated skirt
Girdling its own asymmetrical roots with a lower halo
Of fallen sky and sun machines, leaving only the praise tree, silent,
But smiling ridiculously in the direct light, much reduced,
Young green spent, gold profits spent, bronze losses spent, but silver
Trunk gleaming more brightly than ever, untruncated
Yet.
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