VOICES 3
Milton Kessler
The Maples
The maples all August were cool troves
For summer's sunny emeralds and gold, the glistering leaves.
They were barrows of quiet sorrow, green keeps of shade
Hiding the worn streets from heaven's fire,
Withholding their own suffering to bring them ease.
But before October one or two,
Having borne more, will not refrain,
And, suddenly flaring ahead of all the others,
With the pain all the others will come to,
They redden, desolated, they brighten,
They carry their fury forward into the white winter coming.
And in those first maples
An amber, passion-darkened voice begins slowly
To sing that failure and shame drive life
To the edge of the century.
The gold angry voice that trusted everything
Sings from the leaves, insanely weeping
Into the blue indifferent weather
That it's all gone too far, too far,
Till the song becomes the end it tells of,
The lonely savior.