November

Late November and so many leaves still cling to the trees, some still green, others a soft gold. The blue skies and warm days of September and October have faded to gray skies and chilly rain.

Often the fog embraces the forests from daylight to dusk. Cars crawl cautiously through the mist, their headlights peering at shapes rising along the road. Red brick and red tile homes artfully punctuate the landscape, and the grass resists a wash of sepia. The hedges guard each garden with green, refusing to bend to the turn in the season

Winter solstice is a month away, the days curling up in the cold, the nights stretching in languor. We rise from our beds with effort in the dark and sink into them with delight under bright stars or soft rain on the roof. We turn collars against the cold in the morning and pull quilts up high at night. Our hands cup the comfort of hot mugs; our hearts turn to holidays and those we love and those we’ve lost.

Soon it will be December, and we will light candles against darkness and hang evergreens with hope, each wreath a reminder of the enduring circles of family, of life, of seasons. But for now we cling to the vestiges of autumn like the bits of gold and green still peppering the trees. Winter will come. We feel its breath on our necks, its frost nips at our heels. But for now, autumn lingers and sends one last sigh up to the pearl gray sky before sliding into slumber with resignation and relief.

Comments

[Ern]

What can I say, your imagery is so beautiful...I just soak it in, I'm there.