My Mother Left Me the Sun(edit 1)

[brynmawr1]

In these waning days
of summer, I casually lay
in the shade of live oak;
through leaves the sun
glittering, a face I still see 
 
your smile-- always the sun
you chased as Icarus wanting
absolution from consideration
of who else might fall.  What
does a mother owe her children?
 
The same, I’ve learned, due 
of them when they savage
into the world with hearts 
long traded. Yours was
 
an aurora of seasons prismed
from green to yellow to orange,
then the sun’s red fire.  Death is
the mother of Beauty.  I’ve heard
 
on a breeze the song of a winter 
wren-- undulating, high and long,
but that is no more
than the echo of an earlier spring.
 
I must be content living with memory,
evening’s clouds already gathered--
lay with me and feel
their laughter galloping horizon to horizon.

In these waning days
of summer, I casually lay
in the shade of live oak;
through leaves fractured 
sun’s glitter on whose face
I draw still a mother’s smile,
 
your smile; always the sun
you chased as Icarus wanting
absolution from consideration
of who else might fall.  What
does a mother owe her children?
 
The same, I guess, as due
of them when they savage
into the world having hearts 
long traded. Yours was
 
an aurora of autumn prismed
from green to yellow to orange,
then the sun’s red fire.  Death is
the mother of Beauty.  I hear
 
with a breeze the song of the winter 
wren- undulating, high and long
but that is no more
than the echo of an earlier spring.
 
I must be content living in memory,
evening’s clouds having gathered;
their laughter galloping
horizon to horizon.

This poem was very different before TqB introduced me to Wallace Stevens and then rowens posted the class on "Auras of Autumn" which heavily influenced S4.  I also added a link to the song of the winter wren with a cool visual depiction of the call