M.L. McCarthy
WINTER IN A SUBURB
Its naked white garden refrigerates this house
In a crazy tall terrace faltering up a hill,
Rooved for congregations of birds, shadow-haunted by the
mouse,
Ancient shelter of love and the muses — and here we are
still.
Here we are with a cat, now, working the winter out,
Mounting, descending our desert of stairs in clumpy boots.
How beautiful flitters the snow! Time congeals. A thin doubt
Dream-vexed in sleep, mutters, wriggles out faint roots.
Dream-vexed, in heavy quilts, the nights are got through.
Air-phantoms, cold-engendered frosty armies fling
Ice-prick spears at gelid, sky-bitten brick; undo
Memory, and hope, and the rising hour, crippled on the wing.
GOLDEN OCTOBER
Golden October charms my mind again,
Scattering its jewels on this eastern plain,
Enlivening this luminous desolate sky,
Gilding the brown and yellow leaves that lie
Near to my foot pressing the short soft grass.
Beauty's repeated marvel comes to pass
Even in drab exile where despair prowls round.
It casts its golden shadow on the ground,
Till waked imagination stares to see
Great sunflowers, portals of eternity.
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