November

 

Eight years ago, during a spell of foggy grey weather with not a breath of wind, I wrote this little 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.