Now autumn enters us by slow degrees,
insinuating fog, inserting chill
before the rising sun, and draining trees
that hibernate of verdant chlorophyll.
We’re warm as summer all the afternoon,
but longer is the arrow of that light.
The sun through cloud is silver as the moon.
The moon drifts palely cool upon the night.

To north and east the folks await the cold.
They note the A-line shape of evergreens
designed to shed the load that will be snowed
on them, but here are western autumn scenes:
the painters and the people on the roof,
who render residences waterproof.