To Ashes
All the green trees bring
their rings to you
the widening circles of their years to you
late and soon
casting down their crowns into you
at once they are gone
not to appear
as themselves again
O season of your own
from whom now
even the fire has move on
out of the green voices
and the days of summer
out of the spoken names
and words between them
the mingled nights
the hands the hopes the faces
those circling ages
dancing in flames
as we see now
afterward
here before you
O you with no beginning
that we can conceive of
no end that we can foresee
you of whom once we were made
before we knew ourselves
in this season of our own.
By W.S. Merwin