November Now

The plush sigh of June and July has thinned

To brittle postludes strummed by wilder wind

 Autumnal braille stipples earth’s subdued yard

The hollow vale is like a farewell card

Where landscapes bear an air, not of defeat

But dusky, like the lull of busy streets

Day fawns over fragments of golden dross

They fill the chilly rills with nature’s loss

And where the prose of bare feet rose and fell

The land adapts to November’s blue knell

The big bell in the sky lowers, we know

It waits to spill star-flowers made of snow

***

A heart can ache and feel quite broken, yes,

Love’s token is a fragile happiness

November-loneliness-like, yet quite glad

For all the spring-summer-autumn we had

As deft, rough wind-song strips the clapping tree

Soon what is left is only what we see

Before our eyes or in fields of the mind

The yield of lofty dreams soft-strewn behind

And we find out, without a doubt, the touch

That once we dreaded, does not hurt so much

If we, like nature wear it well and true

Yet, surrender to life’s November too

***

The bonny ways of April days must wait

Tomorrow is a silver-soldered gate

The plate Time sets before us overflows

With blessing that This Present Day bestows

(Though, I confess, sometimes I overlook

Its portion; distracted by what Time took)

It’s up to us to use what daybreak frees

And make the best of almost-memories

November is a blip on frost-dipped strings

...of feeling far more slowly, fleeting things

Where plush sighs of June and July have thinned

To stilted serenades caught on the wind

© Janet Martin

This poem began partly while

watching another 'ordinary day' begin,

Pink-dawn seeping through deep, deep blue ...

where work waits...

  and winter too.

...and partly after reading this poem and laughing with pure joy