Frost

Peering out from an upstairs window
In a spare room mainly owned by three cats
I spied the year's first frost,

A pale frost powdering
The short-cropped yellowy grass,
The newly cold air of the spare room

Mingling in my perception of the frost,
The organization of the frost.
Later that morning I entered

The watery chill of the October air;
Its chill seemed to me a breathing
Entity composed by some watchful

Sense of the long precise and cloudless expanse
Of the day's magnetic, somehow softly metallic sky,
The color of wild blue lupines or the

Common skull cap, or your American brooklime,
Your simple corn
Speedwell

I entered the lake of air
Trailing behind my black shepherd,
The frost now absent,

Dispersed,
But soon again to emerge
In the grass,

No doubt about that
(This year at least), so
Why ever risk becoming

A morose animal
Who lives only by feeling
Doomed and alone?