after Louise Glück

Last week I posted a poem by Louise Glück, who won the Nobel Prize, but I wrote this homage long before that happened–earlier this year, really, thinking about the virus:

October

         after Louise Glück

Aren’t the days skimping
on light again,
mornings dark
and darker

doesn’t the time change soon,
shifting the scant light

doesn’t the chill in the air
intensify now

doesn’t it remind you
how everything slows
withers

doesn’t the garden
yield its last sweet tomato
its last cucumber

the basil turns brown
overnight, few eggs
in the nests

doesn’t it seem like this end
might be the end

Meryl Natchez