November

The north winter wind caresses the willows
That dip their long branches into the shallow
Pools of the river where they sway in the ripples
And sigh softly in the breeze, while like a bellows
Call out the trunks of the trees to the callow
Phantom chill cascading down through the hollow,
Cracking and shivering in the chill wind advancing
In the dim dusk of the light softly filt'ring
Through the boughs naked and branches e'er-swaying,
As, in the remaining rays of the day,
While dips the sun lower, still lower, away,
Where maples and beeches stand shadowed and primal,
Gleam birches un-leafed, pale and phantasmal,
Gossamer ghosts in the gathering dusk,
Their slender crowns bald and full-bared, all husk
And all phantom, all bogle, all goblin and all banshee,
Bone-white and bone-slender limbs thrust like sword-sheathes
Into the belt-loops of Night's coming soldiers,
Their sabers aloft, their blades death and splendor,
Marching, advancing o'er ground and o'er water
That bevy of Commandants Night and of Winter,
Thousands of fallen leaves scattered in bursts
By their black leather boots so spangled with spurs
That jingle and ring through the sky, all appearing
One after each other in the black-ink now nearing
Total eclipse of the gold-burnished sun-sheen
Retreating and fleeing through the hills and ravines
Away, far away, taking the Day with it,
The Lord of all warmth, the King of all splendor,
Bringing a vacuum of pow'r in his wake,
An absence of Life, that bountiful giver,
An absence of Joy, and a desertion of fever,
Vanished entirely from the land, from the water,
All light and all majesty banished forever,
or at least until Spring comes to supplant General Winter.


---Published by Academy of the Heart and Mind, January 2024
https://academyoftheheartandmind.com/2024/01/24/vampires-and-other-poems/
---posted here Dec. 26, 2024