Pre-Winter Wind-Storm

 While we put on the tea kettle...

The wind gnaws at window sashes

Growls like a dog with a bone

Hurls and swirls russet leaf-ashes

Plastering autumn’s gravestone

Bidding stragglers to take cover

Underneath awnings that drip

With tears of a jilted lover

Burned by tamed flames of friendship

Turning ruddy, countenances

Sallow, for lack of sun’s kiss

Jeering like a rogue that dances

As if nothing was amiss

Raking treetop’s naked tresses

Shaking hatches battened down

Hoisting the hemlines of dresses

Making modest matrons frown

Where the heart like a wild stallion

Pounds like hoofs on rib-caged turf

Conscious of wraithlike rebellion’s

Rising, rolling, roaring surf

Boisterous, good-for-nothing rebel

Rattles doors with cold, hard fact

While we put on the tea kettle

And pray the roof stays intact

© Janet Martin

Jim just called to make sure I've 'battened down the hatches'!!

the ominous moan of this morning is turning into 

growling gusto...