grandmother poem

sleep, gray brother of death
short and sweet, and we've come to the end of it
your body's motion is like music
fat black bucks in a wine-barrel room
backward, turn backward
burly, dozing humble-bee
out of me unworthy and unknown
among the smoke and fog of a december afternoon
i have known the silence of the stars and of the sea
those on the top say they know you, earth-they are liars
for i was a gaunt, grave councillor
once this soft turf
there is a country full of wine
why are the things that have no death