November Sky

It is that time of year folks, when summer's lushness has passed through the fiery splendor and turned russet, preparing to fold icy blue in slumber. There is a lot in the month of November that gets seen as a negative, a dying of the land sort of thing, and I guess that is human nature.

But we must all sleep, you and I do it nightly, the earth has a bit of a longer workday, you see what I mean.

NOVEMBER SKY

November sky,
a mottled gray sprawled
across the heavens
like an old, dozing elephant.

Winter approaches
over sloping, low roofs,
overturned boats slumbering
along the shores of drowsiness.

Oak trees scrabble for skylight
with gnarled, empty hands
knowing that decades of life
will burn to ash in seconds
within cast iron graves.

Strangers hunch against chill winds,
eyes cast down to rhythmic feet,
never meeting the eyes of others
unless by accident,
like hairs on a pillow
after an illness.

Cities lumber to a coiled crouch,
awaiting the icy bite of year’s end.

Farmland packs away harvest yield
to sustain through lean times,
and the world sleeps, alone.

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This poem appeared in "Breathing for Clouds" available from Big Table Publishing.

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Shared with the DVerse Poets saying NO to the goodbye of warm weather!

©2013 Christopher Reilley

 
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