Summer was dying the summer I came And the leaves were debating their turning. Snatching those last thick dregs up, they behaved As if that one sip had to last twelve months or more. Southward, dark spears of the migrating birds, North, there was nothing but silence and North, There was nothing but wind. "Luke," she had smiled, "Stay as long as you like," I nodded, the glint of her hair in my eyes And the glare of the Dome in the background. Blocking the sun we spoke hours, With no thought for above nor below nor between Stars arranging themselves in a still opaque sky As we lay in the grass of her field. Dark-footed horses, the crack of the pines, The rise of the brook from the hemlocks, Birchwood draped hills, a sixteen-year-old girl Made me traitor to cornfields and plains. the land where the limp brave are raised up in bronze, Where the flocks spurn the warmth for the winter I declare as my natural home. Blue the Superior, the rust-eaten hulls Blood, buried deep in the water, bearing the chill back from unmeasured forests And darkness from unenjoyed skies. Dusk in September comes quiet and fast, Dusk in September comes quiet, unmourned In a land not created for day. Lisa, the ladle keeps spilling its milk, The lion in November roars arrows, Orion is hunting, his long bowstring taut, His tired prey wanders infinite circles. And I am still driving north far as I can, And so we'll continue until the sky breaks, Until you relent.