Have you ever noticed that November is an emotion?
Fall's charming, golden liminality has frosted over
Into winter's implacable calm,
But without the powdered-sugar coating of snow
That so many deem necessary for desolation to be beautiful.
The house is silent as darkness falls much too early,
Somehow in harmony with the quiet of Novembers past.
Now you sit by the window with tea--
--now you tumble, blinking, into the too-bright light of a temporary kitchen--
--now you board an overnight train to a place you never really went--
--now you sit in a porch swing, in awe
Of the incomprehsensibly dense past that trails every person through an intimately alien life
And bears each one to the here and now.
In the dark and the quiet, details recede
Into the warm cyclical softness of the blanket that envelops
Your past and present self.
Yet out of thin air, sharp intangible frosted feelings
Sting and spatter your wondering face even as they melt
On contact with warm flesh.