autumn is time for cogitation

songs my mother taught me

no less beautiful now
than i ever was: this
may not be saying much

but it means something
untrammelled--

that thing within
that passes show,
green, still, on the vine,
or yet in bud, tight-furled,

but not static.
taut against every
slight ripple
of wind:

bent sometimes
even to ground

yet never
quite broken.