He'd hoped he might get by without an autumn.
Sudden snow. The austerity of white. The precision of cold.
With less providing meaning,
more would recover from it -

and then it would be over. Not these months
detaching final leaves, sorting through junk,
making such an endless fuss of loss
you felt like hanging the leaves back on the trees.

He'd hoped he might get by without going sour.
But the whole garden is fermenting from hours
of rain and almost hissing from a minute's sun.
Oh, the days when things could pass and nothing had to last.

Translation: 2008, David Colmer