Winter Sign

A spider web pulled tight between two stones
With nothing left but autumn leaves to catch
Is maybe a winter sign, or the thin blue bones
Of a hare picked clean by ants. A man can attach

Meanings enough to the wind when his luck is out,
But, having stumbled into this season of grief,
I mean to reflect on the life that is here and about
In the fall of the leaves—not on the dying leaf.

Something more tough, reliable, and stark
Carries the blood of life toward a farther spring—
Something that lies concealed in the soundless dark
Of burr and pod, in the seeds that hook and sting.

I have learned from these that love which endures the night
May smolder in outward death while the colors blaze,
But trust my love—it is small, burr-coated, and tight.
It will stick to the bone. It will last through the autumn days.

Loren Eiseley