Cold Course

The jaded sun lies low in his halt galaxy,
set hard like honey in the stiff comb,
with house and planet, tree and shivering peregrine,
all subjects under him consepulchred,
underfoot and done for, a mere smoke of stars.
The August heat, geometry of dance, full wilt
and fall: all yet survive in the slow sugars;
so, he now sits throned in dust, holds
vestiges and memoranda for his court,
whose armies dominate their night
quicksilver courses irrigate.
These he thought measures to kill time and grief.
Gorged on vermilion, his peers sweated
bright death, transfused the rockveins to their own.
The sovereign they bolted down still circulates
through this enchanted fastness of white sudden stone.