November, by Anne Stevenson

All saints and all souls,

martyrdom of the good days.

Daylight is smoke out of the dark’s bonfire.

An old sun huddles in unclean caves.

But here, anyway, is this step,

now another step.

In imaginary fields, a tractor

sputters with purposes.

As black coal in our black grate

ignites in uncertain tongues,

birch-blaze thins over clinker

where the coke works were.

From “The Collected Poems” by Anne Stevenson (Oxford University Press: 276 pp., $19.95) Copyright 1997 Reprinted by permission.