No Word

True lovers abandon this word, love.

It is no substitute for a thud of plums

dropping in the mist before dawn.

Cocoons where leaves were.

Invisible pulse in the furrow
of November twilight

where geese beat Southward.

Scarlet moon-swell of berries.

The elegiac coyote, the pine breeze,
fallow sweetness of a naked garden,
the grace of a whole afternoon
without speech: no Word
but what things are.