"November is a season all its own —"

Late afternoon sky over my front yard, November 8, 2012 (Catherine Chandler)

November

by Catherine Chandler

November is a season all its own —

a month of saints and souls and soldiers. Snow

will soon white-out a fallacy of brown.

It is a month of waiting, lying low.

November is a season all its own —

a time for turning back the clock as though

it’s useless to pretend. A dressing-down.

Thin ice entices me to touch and go.

November’s neither there nor there, but here

in dazzling dawns that dissipate to grey;

here in the tilting asymmetric branch

and sharp note of a towering white pine where

the pik and churlee of a purple finch

can either break a heart or make a day.

Click HERE to hear the lovely song of the purple finch