Sestina in which My Grandmother is Going Deaf

It is dusk. Somewhere is the sound of water,
And our white chairs are drawn up to the edge
Of the lawn. In the trees above us large grey
Birds are shifting uneasily and a single leaf
Comes down, turning. What it suffers is release,
Scratch of its landing on stone, too small to hear.

So little we have to hold us. What you don’t hear
Is distance blossoming; mooring lines snaking deep water
Beyond the embrace of the harbor. Call it release;
Say that you got what you wanted, here at the edge:
To be drifting lightly away like a leaf
On the quiet surface of water showing you grey.

We sip coffee in very white cups and the sky is grey.
I tell you autumn is ending, and do you hear?
At the back of the soft cold wind we can smell leaves
Burning, past the sprinkler, through the veil of water.
I have to shout to be heard,—as though, at the edge
Of a dock, I were flinging goodbyes to a boat’s release.

Branches rustle above us, is this release?
The trees returning a grey bird into a grey
Sky? The bird slipping over the edge
Of seeing, into the night where I can only hear
Its low cry, poured back like water
to the empty branches, to what doesn't leave . . .

Behind you, I thought, a fluttering leaf
Spun up, pale, inside a window; released.
It was a moth, coming back as though through water,
Dragged up in the darker grey.
It is almost time to go in, I hear
You say, pushing your chair away from the edge

Of the wet lawn. Yes. The shining edge
Of moon sails into the sky like a silver leaf,
As though the dark branches were words it didn’t hear.
Is it so simple? Not to listen, is that release?
To go into silence alone, becoming that color, grey,
The way the drowned leave their names above water.