a poem...

When it is Nearly Winter

A thunderstorm comes tearing from the west,

and once again the ground is thick with leaves

wet and matted, mottled brown and yellow; 

some few fly about the gathering dark

of early evening in November, as

curled shavings fly before the carpenter’s plane.

These are not yet the shortest days, but when

the dark slams down upon those rushing home, 

those who have seen so little daylight while

they worked or slept or ate in tiny rooms,

it seems an almost perpetual night, the day

an errant dream lost before we’re awake,

like some frolicsome snake we glimpse as it 
streaks out of sight along a garden path.