Hi Paul:
Greetings from Manhattan. In the northeast, late November weather can be hard on holiday travelers — but offers opportunities to a poet. Here is “Revision,” a poem from my manuscript-in-progress, Circle of Time.
Best wishes,
Charles Pierre
Autumn: a country lane in Walden, New York. The Hudson Valley. c. 2013. Paul Goldfinger photo. ©
By Charles Pierre
On this mild morning in late November,
I sit writing near a small country spring,
where busy sparrows and squirrels sip
from the trickle amid grasses and ferns,
while falling leaves catch in the branches
of a few bushes or stick to wet rocks
and clumps of dirt in the surrounding pool.
But by ten, clouds drift in from the north
to erase the mellow sunlight, as nature
reworks the composition around the spring
with strong winds and a deepening chill:
the grasses and ferns, leaves and bushes
raked by gusts; the sparrows and squirrels
fled to shelter in nearby woods; the trickle
of water blown as spray from the rocks
and dirt of the drying pool; and even I,
notepad and pen slipped into my pocket,
gone home to write about autumn’s nip.
STAN GETZ “‘Tis Autumn”