The Colors of November

Black clouds blow mostly bare trees,
their branches whipped low.
The green leaves of summer have gone
brown, chasing an 18 wheeler’s passing,
heading toward McDonald’s up the road.

Today it’s an ugly place, that called Five Corners
for the number of streets converging.
Blinking pink and blue neon,
hawking 99 cent lunches and selling gas.

It’s filth laid bare, blown by cool breezes.
And there’s the problem,
cool breezes…not bitter cold or even chilly,
not requiring a favorite coat drawn about your neck
or gloves, socks. I’m in shorts, for Christ’s sake!
Short sleeves, too.

The breeze is out of place,
wrong,for this day, for my mood.
It does nothing to lift me from the grit of dread
I cannot name. It’s been so long gone, this feeling,
that I’d forgotten it existed,
but here it is, full-blown and coarse,
old gray wool and dusty burlap.

It is times like these I wish I could hibernate,
sleep the winter through and wake to spots of snow
flowered with purple crocus and yellow forsythia.