November Is...

Long lies the shadow, ‘cross the globe

Snuffed soon by twilight’s chastening

Earth-scape has donned the deeper robe

Of Time’s insistent hastening

The breaker crashes on the cove

There are no stragglers on the beach

 Summer has fallen from the grove

Once heady with plum bloom and peach

November is a sparring poem

Of letting go and holding on

The separation of tick-tock

Shapes, first the present then the past

Time touts a subtle half-breath lock

Stealing, sealing its pulsing cast

November is a strange ghost-town

Of crumpled leaf and wand’ring wind

As we stroll streets, barren and brown

Seeking a song we cannot find

Yet here and there we glimpse a trace

Of moments spilled to Time’s embrace

Life’s mortal stakes are vanity

November is the solemn steward

Reminding us that what we see

Is but a temporal vineyard

And we, the servants of its spoil

Are at the mercy of tick-tock

Its proof pants in our weary toil

Or leaf-song snared against the rock

November is a broken road

Leading to spring and Heav’n-abode

© Janet Martin