Late autumn – November – has always been one of my favorite times of the year. Oh, I have moments complaining about the cold and coming snow, but I don’t really have my heart in it. As the days grow shorter and the weather spirals down towards winter, I’m find myself feeling happy, and reveling in the sights and sounds and smells of the season – a bird’s nest revealed in a newly-bared tree, the faint honking of invisible geese, the metallic hint of snow in the air. Last weekend it was overcast and rained off and on all Saturday. In a break between the drizzles I went out with my camera and took a photo of my road trailing off into the chilly distance, and of the puddle at my feet.
I write a lot of my own poetry about autumn, but I’m not the only one who loves this time of year. I record autumn poems by others in a little journal book as I come across them. Two of my favorites are by Emily Bronte, and Robert Frost. Here is Frost's verse, celebrating the sombre beauty of the season.
My November Guest
My Sorrow, when she's here with me,
Thinks these dark days of autumn rain
Are beautiful as days can be;
She loves the bare, the withered tree;
She walks the sodden pasture lane.
Her pleasure will not let me stay.
She talks and I am fain to list:
She's glad the birds are gone away,
She's glad her simple worsted gray
Is silver now with clinging mist.
The desolate, deserted trees,
The faded earth, the heavy sky,
The beauties she so truly sees,
She thinks I have no eye for these,
And vexes me for reason why.
Not yesterday I learned to know
The love of bare November days
Before the coming of the snow,
But it were vain to tell her so,
And they are better for her praise.
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