"And, all about, the vacant plot,
Was peopled and inhabited
By scores of mulleins long since dead.
A silent and forsaken brood
In that mute opening of the wood,
So shrivelled and so thin they were,
So gray, so haggard, and austere,
Not plants at all they seemed to me,
But rather some spare company
Of hermit folk, who long ago,
Wandering in bodies to and fro,
Had chanced upon this lonely way,
And rested thus, till death one day
Surprised them at their compline prayer,
And left them standing lifeless there."
In November
Archibald Lampman
I had been considering a posting on the
beautiful fall colours we were having when
a few weeks ago it snowed and stayed and
stayed. Then last week I was going to take
some photos of the lovely frost we were having
and it mostly melted before I got any photos.
But while I was taking these photos it occurred to
me that everything I came across seemed trapped
between seasons. There as the last remnants of
the bright summer green, leeched to paler pastel
shades and finally to the rustling grey white pages of
winter. The reds are bleeding to brown amid the
faded blue greens of the spruce.
And it was not just the plants that were caught
in the net of the seasons.
" I cannot ride this wind into summer.
Still, it is doubtful who is encaged: all
the bigger trees are bare; black
they reach into grey sky
like ornamental ironwork-
against which blow the belated birds"
From My Window: Late November
D.G. Jones
