Loren Eiseley: Some short poems and a haiku by Roka

Footnote to Autumn

Old boulders in the autumn sun and wind,
Settling a little, leaning toward the light
As if to store its summer--these remain
The earth's last gesture in the falling night.

This then is age: It is to have been worked
By the forces of frost and the unloosing sun,
It is to bear such markings fine and proud
As speak of weathers that are long since done.



The second stanza:  could that refer to people?  I have seen photographs of people whose faces seem to tell the stories of their lives.


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Night Snow


Nothing
Is lovelier
Than snowflakes at midnight
Drifting out of the dark above the
Streetlamps.
-- Loren Eiseley --


I can remember winter nights in Chicago, looking out the window at the snow coming down in the light of the streetlight in front of our house. 

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Old Wharf at Midnight

Under
All decay sounds
The restless monotone
Of the sea at midnight creeping beneath
Old piers.


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The Dark Reader

Old moons
these nights and years,
and moss on broken stones . . .
Who stoops by glow-worm lamps to read
your name?


-- Loren Eiseley --
from The Lost Notebooks of Loren Eiseley

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     Winter rain deepens
Lichened letters on the grave . . .
     And my old sadness
                 -- Roka --
from A Little Treasury of Haiku