Winter Memory (Dec. 3, 1975)

It’s winter
or at least they tell me so…
The mercury’s in the 50’s
but there’s not a speck of snow…

The garlic bulbs are sprouting
and bright colored birds abound,
Yet the irrigation pipes are piled
and the hay’s stacked all around;
The skies have darkened
and the rains have come,
The long, soft rains have, come…

You were here when winter started,
when the dogwood leaves were falling
And spilling…
Spilling into pink puddles on the ground;
we watched the big-leaf maple leaves falling,
spinning and whirling around.

The leaves are where we left them,
except a few the winds have wished away,
The colors that we knew that day
have faded
But the leaves,
the memory,
are here to stay.

— The Willamette Valley, Oregon, — Salem, 1975