Listen close and you will hear

The dying heart that is November,

Its gasping breath in the few remaining

Leaves that cling to branches that no longer

Want them as they sway to and fro

In the biting teeth of a mid-day wind

That gives no refuge to their murmured,

Death rattle pleas and are finally carried

Toward the cold empty streets and frost

Coated yards like so many discarded words.

The heart can know what the mind ignores

And such is the nature of things, but when

That death rattle sound skates across my

Roof as pebbles on slate, and that East

Wind holds counsel within the hidden

Places of my soul, who am I then

To doubt the ebb of times passing

As it pushes me towards December

And those leaves are covered in the

Softly falling snow like burial shrouds?

Take heed, my friends, and be grateful

Because time is like a childhood dream,

There and somehow gone before we even

Realize we dreamed it, once, in the long ago

When we walked immortal through our

Childhood lives, look to your loved ones

And listen not to that idiot wind but instead

To each other, and give thanks for the spirit

That dwells within each of us as the minute

Hand ticks its way to eternity.

END

“November”