First Frost
We stared out the kitchen
windows at the white lawn.
In the garden the sweet basil
I intended to turn into pesto
had turned dark. Tomatoes slumped
over their tall cages, shrunken,
their green reaching done.
By the time I walked into the sharp air
the frost, under the advancing sun,
had withdrawn,
except for that spot under the mulberry tree
that became, on a closer look,
the mockingbird’s ash-gray feathers
left behind by a hawk.