Fall

Leave the bars lying in the grass.

Let all wanderers freely pass

Into the pasture now.

Gone are the fawn-shy heifers, gone

The little calf almost a fawn,

And the black two-year cow.

Leave the bars lying where they are.

Let each black-triangled birch bar

Be white and triple-warning:

One for all the tender things that go,

One for the near and ultimate snow,

One for frost by morning.

In that first snow a frightened deer,

Swifter than snowfall, swift as fear,

May pass here flying, flying.

What if no fence could foil his speed?

Spare him the leap, spare him one need

Of leaping.  Leave the bars lying.

Robert Francis

From Robert Francis: Collected Poems:
1936-1976, University of Massachusetts
Press,  © 1985.  Reprinted by permission.