Parentalia Daniel 12:3-4, 9, By Geoffrey Hill

Go your ways, as if in thanksgiving:

Daniel finally instructed of the Lord.

The book is closed for your time; it will not

open again to the slow

round of the psalms, the prophets of righteousness.

But go, as instrumental, of the Lord,

life-bound to his foreknowledge

and in his absence making your return

to the generations, the rosaceae,

the things of earth snagging the things of grace,

darkened hawthorn, its late flare, that stands

illustrious, and the darkening season--

Harvest Festival to Armistice Day

the other harvest.

From “Canaan” by Geoffrey Hill (Mariner: 80 pp., $14 paper)