INVERSION

Last night
the season turned over,
Fall breaking up through
the gold surges of summer,
quietly, quickly.
Morning disclosed the inversion.
Behind the east mountain
clouds back-rimmed with silver,
thin light shafts touched earth
through the drift smoke of fires.
The sun, rising late and sliding off
southward.  Coolness and the hush
which is Autumn's.
All bright calling birds of the summer,
departed, the silent brown sparrows
moved through withered grasses
devouring grasshoppers, and cattle,
down from dry ranges, stood tight grouped,
and anxious beside long barbed fences,
remembering now,
the fat, sweet barns of home.