Gargoyle 5
cover drawing by Keith Tartler
publication date 3/18/1977

The Filled Pipe

Desmond O'Brien

The filled pipe
ash now.
One cricket sings
in the frost.
The others have left him
on the last bending stalk
to sing his lone song
across the sheet of night
to sound in the moon
in the scraping of bared limbs,
silent tumblings of whisked
falled leaves.

They are tossed. Blow across
roots, to settle.
In a towers’ window
the single flame burns.
The forests are thick,
the holly green,
the sky scented with snow.
The pen scratches the grain.