Autumn advertises each winter vividly,
and one touches the damp earth,
feels sunrays fading power —
a light too cold or clean to be real,
the longer shades of sadness —
while migratory birds mock from above,
and countries' borders become physical.
After the trees strip off their shame,
snow will claim its fields back
with self-enforcing purity.
Even prior to the human genetic map,
it's clear life couldn't spring from this land;
Kaplinski was right and we’re not home,
therefore the longing.
