For dverse. Painting by Auguste Macke

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Pagliacci

The night wears stars on velvet,
a river of diamonds, dancing-partnered
by lake water, still and silk-smooth.

Round about, wild in the wind,
trees cast off the old gold, red and russet
of the end of season colours,

to stand, black and trembling,
stark in the bud, until green spring
drapes them in bright gauze.

I wish I could fledge,
feathered in blue and robin-red,
with spring singing in my throat,

but these days of golden light, short and shorter,
pied summer I wore lightly is gone,
my heart already winter-clad.