Stylishly, in the white season,
we come here wearing awkward logs
on our feet, to skate on icebergs,
to ride pulleys into the sky
and ride the sky down.

We ride the sky down,
our voices falling back behind us,
unraveling like smooth threads.
Say, I am the air I break; or say,
I am a spool unwinding.

I am the spool that unwound
while riding the sky down, that waits
now to ride the pulley back into the sky,
that comes here, stylishly,
each weekend, for the same trick
in the white season.

Never, never may the fruit be plucked from the bough
And gathered into barrels.
He that would eat of love must eat it where it hangs.
Though the branches bend like reeds,
Though the ripe fruit splash in the grass or wrinkle on the tree,
He that would eat of love may bear away with him
Only what his belly can hold,
Nothing in the apron,
Nothing in the pockets.
Never, never may the fruit be gathered from the bough
And harvested in barrels.
The winter of love is a cellar of empty bins,
In an orchard soft with rot.