Wednesday 27 November 2013

November -- a poem

NOVEMBER


Strange times.
November's complacent benediction
in blackness before dawn,
with just a hint of menace?
Silence.

Day after day
A grey shroud over our heads
draped from far horizons,
flat, heavy, damp
as a grimy sponge
drawing colour from the land.
A leaden sea.
Even the stream is low, slow, murmuring.

Night after night
no stars, no wind, no moon, no rain.
Unsettled, I listen.
Silence.
Then, in the far woods
A tawny owl,
right on the edge of hearing.


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(This came into my head at 5 am this morning, as I lay awake feeling thoroughly grotty and full of cold........  so I had a cup of tea and wrote it down.......)

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