The Balance

I bathed in the tender welter
of Spring’s tide and tried to learn
the sap’s secrets. I joined the willows
in their leaf birth to find a calyx
of myself taut with blossom,
but time rides the sun and my green
faded. Across wide fields I saw the wind
snatch up color without mercy
and bleach the wheat stalks bowed
with yellow heads.
My summer ended bankrupt and I
felt myself impoverished but leaf
by molten leaf gold fell into
the vault of memory to be spent
like a prodigal’s in the bare season.