Vindemia

Vindemia, or the Beginning of the End

The world is too old for us to talk about it with our new words.

-Kerouac

Out of the trembling horizon,

The Sun arrives quieter with each day,

Timid between the trees.

The early shrouded candle paints

A grim land with dim light:

There, a vintage shivers in the wind.

Cold soil arrayed in wire and vine

Sends an anxious thread across the neck

Of Noé, on his way to work.

Before him, Libra sighs and cuts

Currents across the pale grass:

The harvest has arrived.

Noé’s nimble hands work across

The winding stems of clustered grapes,

In shades like sunset on the sea.

He considers not the passing of the hour.

He hears only the rhythm of the reaping,

His breath, and distant birdsong.

His basket bears the weight

Of the eighteen summer rains

That fell like tears upon a page.

Noé notes a fresh nobility:

As evening gathers all into herself,

A harvest moon ascends her throne.

All is swallowed by the night,

As it was in the beginning, is now,

And will be all at once. 

Winter 2022