Poemtrees

Poemtrees - W.G. Sebald

For how hard it is
to understand the landscape
as you pass in a train
from here to there
and mutely it
watches you vanish.

A colony of allotments
uphill into the fall.
Dead leaves swept
into heaps.
Soon - on Saturday -
a man will
set them alight.

Smoke will stir
no more, no more
the trees, now
evening closes
on the colors of the village.
An end is come
to the workings of shadow.
The response of the landscape
expects no answer.

The intention is sealed
of preserved signs.
Come through the rain
the address has smudged.
Suppose the "return"
at the end of the letter!
Sometimes, held to the light,
it reads: "of the soul".