(This is a photo from my archives the way December used to look!
Today it is raining; there is no snow)
I'll follow up with a today pic later if I can.
The golden rod is bent now
Beneath December’s flow
The trees in apple orchards
Flaunt dazzling robes of snow
The gentian’s bluest fringes
Have sown to earth their tear
Time’s door on silent hinges
Is closing to the year
The sedges plant their keeping
In downy meadow nook
The afternoon is sleeping
Save for unfrozen brook
Down drifted lanes of morning
The eager children go
Shod with kind mother’s warnings
Those footprints in the snow
By all these argent tokens
December days are here
The month of joy and hoping
The month of Christmas cheer
Each season has its beauty
Each season has its strife
Their strands of hope and duty
Weave moments into life
We share its spoils of laughter
And bear its common woe
From heaven’s low-flung rafter
Sweet moments fall like snow
© Janet Martin
This is a spin-off from Helen Hunt Jackson's Poem; September
September
by Helen Hunt Jackson
THE golden-rod is yellow;
The corn is turning brown;
The trees in apple orchards
With fruit are bending down.
The gentian's bluest fringes
Are curling in the sun;
In dusty pods the milkweed
Its hidden silk has spun.
The sedges flaunt their harvest,
In every meadow nook;
And asters by the brook-side
Make asters in the brook,
From dewy lanes at morning
The grapes' sweet odors rise;
At noon the roads all flutter
With yellow butterflies.
By all these lovely tokens
September days are here,
With summer's best of weather,
And autumn's best of cheer.
But none of all this beauty
Which floods the earth and air
Is unto me the secret
Which makes September fair.
'T is a thing which I remember;
To name it thrills me yet:
One day of one September
I never can forget.
This is November's Offering:
November
The golden rod is brown now
The corn is in its bin
The trees in apple orchards
Are stripped of rosy grin
The gentians bluest fringes
Are shriveled, brittle fray
In broken pods the milkweed
Has flung its silk away
The sedges spill their harvest
In stilted meadow-nook
And asters by the brook-side
Have dropped into the brook
From frosted lanes of morning
The children’s breath-clouds rise
The ditch is all a-flutter
With birch-leaf butter-flies
By all these gilded tokens
November days are here
With autumn’s dismal weather
And autumn’s sullen tear
But none of this gray tinting
Which makes November drear
Can dim November’s hinting
Of Christmas drawing near
And I will share my secret
Of dull November’s guile
For soon it will be Christmas
And that is why I smile
© Janet Martin
