THEN CAME NOVEMBER

The wild month tinged with melancholy

and the promise of shortened days,

dull and dark.

Just barely a day old

it brought the long awaited rattle of rain on my roof

and then later that week, a hard frost

which finally decimated by summer begonias.

A mad rush of snowbirds head south

in their heavy-weight RV's.

And none to soon 

as one day later winter made an early debut

with a premature snowfall, delicate as lace

but rapidly melting.

My stripped and beautiful birches

grieving the loss of their dearly departed leaves

creak and moan in the wind.

A sobering reminder 

that we will soon be plunged 

into the cold shadows of winter

where the bone structure of the landscape

can be felt from every angle,

where bitter blasts bite at exposed hands and faces

and hard frosts extinguish what's left of the year.

We will return, once again,

to a plain sense of things.

(November 2013)