November

The first frost has been and gone. Winter is well on the way. And that means, it’s time for the next installment in our poetry series, enjoy!

NOVEMBER 

Falling, the leaves – and now falling, the rain.
Falling, the mood of the year winding down,
When long fall the shadows laid by the low sun,
And secretly frost falls beneath the pearl moon.

Mercury falls as Siberia exhales.
Soon trees and fences are felled by fierce gales.
Tide-wrack strews shorelines and matchwood the ground.
The fallen detritus that’s scattered around
Evokes the world’s bloodshed: there’s never a dearth
Of limbs and fruit fallen and smashed on the earth.

So as autumn’s red flare is fading away,
A freighted hush falls on Armistice Day:
Heavy, the sense of our mortality,
And our slow comprehension of life’s vanity.
Memory is failing, for the dead don’t remember,
But the fallen are saluted by fall in November.

Now night falls so early, like a veil of discretion,
And snow might fall softly, like a mute absolution.
Though they mask, they can’t mend the earth’s sad dereliction:
The fallen world’s only hope is resurrection.

Anne Woodcock