November Ballad

A few frames of the first four days of November...

I penned the first stanza on Monday, a blustery, rainy harbinger

to a gorgeous, sunny week that somehow 

*pulled its carpet out from under me before 

I had a chance to return to assemble the lines playing a ballad in my heart!

Instead of its original intent of October farewell

it turned into a November welcome!

below, a few 'carpet-tatters'😅

Leaf-decoupage decks rain-washed walks and lanes

Yard is a bed with crinkled counterpanes

Hearth is aflicker with fizzles and sputs 

Blue jay-bullies bicker, squirrel gathers nuts

And on yonder slope where corn tassels tossed

Umber furrows glisten with tinsel of frost

Garden-plots slumber until it is spring

Last squash and pumpkins are all gathered in

Shiny red chestnuts shed prickly, brown coats

River is dappled with fleets of leaf boats

Woodland is winnowed of whisper and sigh

Leaf awnings lower to let in the sky

Day breaks through molds of gold and amethyst

Landscapes are lavished with murmurs of mist

Wind choreographs lone-leaf pirouettes

Dusk, a brusque backdrop for stark silhouettes

Etched on a skyline of shiver and brr

Earth, like a deserted amphitheater

…After the crowds saw what they came to see

Quietness thunders with chick-a-dee-dee

After the rustling and rushing of feet

Silence amplifies echoes, bittersweet

As if a season of laughter and play

Was raked into heaps and trundled away

...while new generations learn toil's ethics 

Simple as helping to load leaves and sticks

Feeling the fervor of favor's delight

Of honest labor's hearty appetite 

Earning the happiness of high fives won (or in this case, jelly beans)

Tasting the sweetness of a job well done

November nips at hearts, noses and ears

While we come to grips with the blip of years

Tuning a tug of war, hold-and-release

Painting a minimalist’s masterpiece

After a palette of color, windblown

November showcases russet and brown

© Janet Martin

my childcare-tots inspired this stanza.... they were SO happy to help!

...while new generations learn toil's ethics 

Simple as helping to load leaves and sticks

Feeling the fervor of favor's delight

Of honest labor's hearty appetite 

Earning the happiness of high fives won

Tasting the sweetness of a job well done

I lamented to Little Lad about how

we were raking up one of my very favorite sounds in the world...

the rustle of leaves under feet!

So, he accommodated my suggestion of 'saving the sound'💖