November 24

Bitter cold. Stiff wind. Nose bleed. The dogs choose the shorter trail. Hummingbird nest in an umbra of twigs. Paperwasp nest in a cloud of berry canes. Both empty. In the snow, a drop of blood. In the distance, suspended above the brown fluff of goldenrod, a nebula of winterberry, cheerful and bright.

Fill your lungs with clean,

cold air—grateful for the fire

burning back at home.

November 18

Locking up the barn after dark. The wind is kicking up—the cold coming back after a few days of sweet, mild sunshine. In the darkness, the ducks stir uneasily in their pen. A sky full of stars, except for one cloud in the east, black as the earth below, its top outlined orange by the hidden moon.

Inside the barn, hens

sleep in the dark. Inside them,

warm eggs wait their chance.

November 2

The foliage has faded away, leaving the brown and black world of trunks and stems under a gray sky. Suddenly some yellow late-bloomer illuminates in fulsome gold the margin between orchard and woods--as quick, an orange reply in the shrubs at the foot of the slope. The cold is coming tomorrow: whatever you’ve got to say, say it now.

Sudden flame of rust

in gray woods. What’s that bird in

the apple? Towhee!

October 29

A good time of year to like brown: we are all about texture now. Poofy seed pods of goldenrod, scruffy tree trunks, distant vaguely twiggy hillsides, nearly invisible deer. The sunrises are becoming oranger, though, and broad, behind the entire range of mountains to the east. The sun rises sometimes on fields made white with sparkling crystals, like very temporary snow.

Heavy frost—dogs leave

melted butt prints on lawn. The

paws that refreshes!

October 22

Wild raspberry leaves illuminated like stained glass, arching gracefully over milkweed pods. The double doors open and the silky white congregation exits, brown boots dangling as they fly home to their new place. The beech copse at the foot of the orchard has turned into a Klimt—golden cloud through which we glimpse the black structure of trunk and limb, the stiff and intertwining life that keeps us upright. Not sinister. Not Buchenwald—instead, The Kiss.

After a shower

droplets refract the colors—

one loud little world.

October 17

The bright golden days are fading now. Canes of maroon blackberry leaves flop over the trail, where the grass is still green and lush in the shadow of the browning goldenrod. It is not cold yet, but more and more trees are bare, more black limbs stand stark against the sky. The migrant songbirds have left, even the ones that nest far north of here. On pleasant nights, geese pass overhead. Summer has gone out like a tide, and sometime soon the warm air will go sliding away like the last bubbles on the trailing edge of a wave.

The postman sweeps

the leaves from his parking lot—

a new day begins.

October 1

After months of rain, finally a few dry weeks. Everyone loves this time of year—probably because the sun is out for days on end, and when does that ever happen in the Northeast? The ashes and basswoods are almost bare, the sugar maples turning gold and shedding gold smartly.

Cloud passes the sun,

a sudden spattering—rain?

No, shower of leaves.