How this season is both noun and verb:

The leaves of course, and long cold rain,

The chaff and stubble of the black fields

Tilled and turned back into the ground.

The stream almost still in shallow stones,

Descents into den and burrow, river mud,

The silence of things returning to their roots 

And the sounds above it all echoing south.

The earth taking back what it has given.

Thin trees can't hold the light, early dusk

Leans and lengthens, takes me in, chrysalis

Closing around my old figures of speech.