The glass has been falling all the afternoon
And knowing better than the instrument
What winds are walking overhead, what zone
Of gray unrest is moving across the land
I leave the book upon a pillowed chair
And walk from window to closed window, watching
Boughs strain against the sky

And think again, as often when the air
Moves inward toward a silent core of waiting,
How with a single purpose time has traveled
By secret currents of the undiscerned
Into this polar realm. Weather abroad
And weather in the heart alike come on
Regardless of prediction

Between foreseeing and averting change
Lies all the master of elements
Which clocks and weatherglasses cannot alter
Time in the hand is not control of time
Nor shattered fragments of an instrument
A proof against the wind; the wind will rise,
We can only close the shutters

I draw the curtains as the sky goes black
And set a match to candles sheathed in glass
Against the keyhole draught, the insistent whine
Of weather through the unsealed aperture
This is our sole defense against the season;
These are the things that we have learned to do
Who live in troubled regions