In Corsica, the sun is strong
at midday in the last days of October:
old man determined to be young.

We sit all afternoon, the only customers,
outside the mountain restaurant.
Around us chestnut leaves drop, one by one.

The long meal closes. Coffee chills quickly
now a hill obscures the sun;
but the signora brings the grappa bottle on,

entrapped in solid ice, and in the ice
the flowers and fruits of spring and summer
reignite the seasons gone.