The Dwarf

Now it is September and the web is woven.
The web is woven and you have to wear it.

The winter is made and you have to bear it,
The winter web, the winter woven, wind and wind,

For all the thoughts of summer that go with it,
In the mind, pupa of straw, moppet of rags.

It is the mind that was woven, the mind that was jerked
And tufted in straggling thunder and shattered sun.

It is all you are, the final dwarf of you,
That is woven and woven and waiting to be worn,

Neither as mask nor as garment but as a being,
Torn from insipid summer, for the mirror of cold,

Sitting beside your lamp, for the citron to nibble
And coffee dribble . . . Frost is in the stubble.