November hymnal (9)

The clouds are grazing on the hills of morning light
Waiting for it to get colder so they can become tigers

And bite everyone. For now they are just the shadow
Of the swishing tail. November, stop pacing.

You can’t pull us apart like a vulture on the road.
You’re not October’s thrill of departure but a cooling

Afterthought. You don’t see the sharp gloom of the departed
Who themselves don’t know they’re gone. Who are us all

Each to our someone who’s forgotten us. I tell myself
That nothing lasts, but I remember the first time I heard

You laugh, a prowling like a new word that could
Swallow this season whole and leave footprints in the snow

Still yet to fall, like those flowers that bloom in February
Or the dry shadow of a paper delivered in the rain.