Farewell to November...

Wind whines through skeletal outlines of summer

Earth pines for luster of fresh-fallen coats

Nature, resplendent in garb of November

Composes eulogies lodged in our throats

Unsung harbinger of white winter-lands

Slipping frost fingers through bright-mittened hands

Whetting farewell’s threshold of *Auld Lang Syne

Tucking last leaves into eaves and fence-lines

This place of graves cradles more than braved hours

Earth is an echo-land, promise-entwined

Hope finds a foothold on hills primed with flowers

While eyes scan skylines of still-life resigned

Dash, freckled fellow and giggle, wee girlie

…where twilight tiptoes across porches early

November bids us remember somehow

How suave the bidding that doffs here and now

Soon the bare bough will bulge with budded fervor

Soon what seems beaten will restore its vim

Soon the stilled plow will return to the furrow

Soon trees will tremble with nature’s glad hymn

Round by the casements of cottage winds whimper
 While we stoke fires and prep hearts for winter

But like a vagabond, blue and unkissed

November disappears in rain and mist

© Janet Martin

*The phrase "for auld lang syne" essentially boils down to "for (the sake of) old times".