Stumps

Two stumps, couchant
and grandly gnarled
like oriental lions
in a den of autumn oaks

shade imminent
and closing in,
like year and years

the far west campus
readying again
for its more serious purpose

the pause of summer
done, ephemeral as summers past

these great truncated beasts,
creatures of time itself, laying
a heavy paw over
the paper-lightness of its bones.

—Christie