Gold Mouths Cry

Gold mouths cry with the green young

certainty of the bronze boy

remembering a thousand autumns

and how a hundred thousand leaves

came sliding down his shoulder blades

persuaded by his bronze heroic reason.

We ignore the coming doom of gold

and we are glad in this bright metal season.

Even the dead laugh among the goldenrod.

The bronze boy stands kneedeep in centuries,

and never grieves,

remembering a thousand autumns,

with sunlight of a thousand years upon his lips

and his eyes gone blind with leaves.